Modellierungskonzepte der Synergetik und der Theorie der Selbstorganisation

TL;DR

This paper explores how concepts from physics, especially self-organization and evolution, have been transferred to social sciences, introducing models and a game to illustrate abstract evolution theories in social process modeling.

Contribution

It provides a historical overview of physics-based modeling in social sciences and introduces the Evolino game to engage broader audiences with evolution-theory approaches.

Findings

Physics-inspired models are prevalent in social process simulation.

The Evolino game demonstrates abstract evolution concepts.

Historical transfer of physics models to social sciences is outlined.

Abstract

Mnay models situated in the current research landscape of modelling and simulating social processes have roots in physics. This is visible in the name of specialties as Econophysics or Sociophysics. This chapter describes the history of knowledge transfer from physics, in particular physics of self-organization and evolution, to the social sciences. We discuss why physicists felt called to describe social processes. Across models and simulations the question how to explain the emergence of something new is the most intriguing one. We present one model approach to this problem and introduce a game -- Evolino -- inviting a larger audience to get acquainted with abstract evolution-theory approaches to describe the quest for new ideas.