Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social Life (Princeton Studies in Complexity Book 14)

by John H. Miller

The agent-based object approach can be considered “bottom-up” in the sense that the behavior that we observe in the model is generated from the bottom of the system by the direct interactions of the entities that form the basis of the model. This contrasts with the “top-down” approach to modeling where we impose high-level rules on the system—for example, that the system will equilibrate or that all firms profit maximize—and then trace the implications of such conditions. Thus, in top-down modeling we abstract broadly over the entire behavior of the system, whereas in bottom-up modeling we focus our abstractions over the lower-level individual entities that make up the system.