Can Computer Simulation yield Knowledge about the Social World

     One purpose of using computer simulations is to gain a better understanding of some features of the social world. Relatively well-known examples include the use of simulation in demographic research, simulating national economies, or discovering the consequences of theories in “artificial society.” However, these processes face much stronger obstacles in the social sciences than in most natural sciences, and some social scientists have doubts about their usefulness in studying social phenomena. For example, the term agent is frequently used within artificial intelligence. The concept of agency is usually used, when applied to people; to express the purposeful nature of human activity. Thus, it is linked to concepts such as beliefs, desires, motives, and emotions, that is, concepts that always apply to people, not to computer programs. This raises the question of how feasible the idea of agency within artificial intelligence is. The concept of emergence is closely linked to macro-categorical structures and concepts such as class, culture, or system that are macro-consequences of basic generative processes, which can be explored through simulations. Here some questions arise: to what extent do artificial societies create social phenomena? To what extent do these societies reveal surprising, unexpected effects? Do artificial societies provide a laboratory for social scientists? If there are several challenges that hinder the validity of the results of simulation models in the social sciences, how do as one know that the simulation correctly simulates the actual phenomenon? Through a comparative critical analysis, this study investigates these questions, and also addresses the problems of computer simulations application within the social fields and their advantages as well. This study emphasizes that computer simulations have distinctive features that make them a fruitful new virtual experimental tool.