This book argues that cooperation can emerge and persist in complex systems, even among self-interested individuals. It extends the basic Prisoner's Dilemma framework to explore how cooperation can be fostered and maintained in various social contexts. The collection uses agent-based modeling, a computational technique that simulates individual interactions according to defined rules, to uncover emergent properties of social systems.
The essays move beyond the Prisoner's Dilemma to address issues such as coping with errors in perception or implementation, the emergence of norms, and the development of new political actors and regions of shared culture. Readers will gain an understanding of complexity theory and computer modeling in the social sciences, with a focus on how cooperation can arise through the simulation of interactions.
Key concepts
- Agent-based modeling — A technique that specifies rules of interaction between individuals and uses computer simulation to discover emergent properties of the social system.
- Prisoner's Dilemma — A paradigm used as a starting point to study issues of cooperation and competition.
- Complexity theory — A field that examines how complex systems, like societies, can exhibit emergent properties.
- Emergent properties — Characteristics of a system that arise from the interactions of its individual components, not from the components themselves.