Re: the nature of group membership

Yes! Good points.

We need to define some sort of working terminology for groups, sub-groups, etc. Set theory would be a convenient way to describe the group membership of individuals, especially when it comes time to write down our ideas on paper with precise mathematical notation.

Here's my current train of thought on groups for evoDesign crowd purposes:

Crowd = the entire set of individuals contained in one phenotype

Group (defn. A) = a subset of a crowd (could contain the entire crowd) where the behaviors of all the individuals at a given moment in time are defined by the same set of genes -- i.e. these five guys have a flee value of 0.3, a hide value of 0.5, and a wander value of 0.2 so they are behaving like prey.

Group (defn. B) = the same as defn. A, but instead of sharing the same behavior state an any given moment, the individuals in this type group would have the exact same state diagram and behavior gene makeup (note: members of this type of group do not necessarily form members of a group by defn. A)

Group (defn. C) = a subset of a crowd defined by locality -- i.e. those 3 guys over there in the corner.

I think we need all 3 notions of group defined above, but obviously we shouldn't use the word "group" for all three meanings. Any ideas on what we could call these three different meanings of the word group? Are there other possible definitions y'all can think of?

Group (defn. B) is definitely static. Groups (defn. A+C) have dynamic membership, which is interesting, especially when we start talking about behaviors defined by locality or interaction with other groups. One thing to think about with regard to the dynamism of a particular group is explicitness vs. implicitness. Is the dynamic nature of the group membership defined by a variable or does it emerge from the interaction of a lot of behavior variables among a couple of groups? My guess is probably the latter and this is one of the things that makes crowd sim really interesting to watch! Thoughts?

- J