Entropic analysis of a hierarchically organized Axelrod model

TL;DR

This paper investigates a hierarchically structured Axelrod model of cultural dynamics, revealing how entropy-based measures relate to culture diversity and pattern quantization, contrasting with typical random initial conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a structured initial condition approach to the Axelrod model and links entropy measures to culture pattern quantization and controllability.

Findings

Maximum culture branching aligns with highest entropy regime.

Culture patterns exhibit quantization explained by entropy formalism.

Structured initial conditions significantly affect cultural diversity outcomes.

Abstract

Hierarchically organized patterns are ubiquitously found in complex systems. However, this point is frequently misrepresented in many Sociophysics models, mainly because random initial conditions are by far the most assumed in the literature. In this article, we studied a simple and quasi-aparametric Axelrod model of culture dynamics assuming structured (hierarchically organized) initial conditions. As a first remarkable point, the maximum final culture branching is observed to correspond to a highest uncontrollability regime of an entropy based framework described before. Also, this model shows a quantization of culture patterns that can be explained with the aid of that formalism.