We simulate systems of social practices based on BDI ("believe - desire - intention") systems. The PROLOG programmes generate and handle systems of beliefs and intentions of actors by 'empirical' rules which are not valid in all cases. The beliefs and intentions are represented by action-types. Sets of action types and the appertaining believes and intentions characterise groups of actors. The simulations show how some groups are stabilized by their beliefs and belief changes.
Elementary actions can be represented with verbs in a natural language. For each joint action we can construct a social practice. These practices are the building blocks in our social simulations. Our account avoids real numbers and real functions to express actions. We represent actions and action-types by verbs.
Several PROLOG progammes are written by S. Hofmann.
- Hofmann, S. 2009. Dynamik sozialer Praktiken: Simulation gemeinsamer Unternehmungen von Frauengruppen,
Wiesbaden, VS Research.
- Hofmann, S. 2002. The Social Practice of a Woman's Group: A First Simulation.
In: Meggle, G. (ed.). Social Facts and
Collective Intentionality,
151-165, Frankfurt/Main.
- Hofmann, S., Mäkelä, R., Pitz, T., Chmura, T. 2002. How Can we Avoid Traffic Jams? - Simulating the Social Practice of
Joint Ride.
In: Urban, C. (ed.). 3rd Workshop on Agent-Based Simulation, April 7-9, Passau, Germany, pp.50-54.
- Hofmann, S. 1997. Maschinelle Erzeugung und Ableitung von Überzeugungssystemen. MA-Thesis, University of Munich.
- Balzer, W. and Tuomela, R. 2003. Collective Intentions and the Mainentance
of Social Practices, Autonomous Agents and
Multi-Agent Systems 6, 7-33.
- Balzer,W. and Tuomela, R. 1997. A Fixed Point Approach to Collective Attitudes. In Holmström-Hintikka, G. and
Tuomela, R. (eds.). Contemporary Action Theory, Vol. II, 115-142.