"Why should we care about having true beliefs? And why do demonstrably false beliefs persist and spread despite consequences for the people who hold them? Philosophers of science Cailin O’Connor and James Weatherall argue that social factors, rather than individual psychology, are what’s essential to understanding the spread and persistence of false belief. It might seem that there’s an obvious reason that true beliefs matter: false beliefs will hurt you. But if that’s right, then why is it irrelevant to many (...) people whether they believe true things or not? In an age riven by "fake news," "alternative facts," and disputes over the validity of everything from climate change to the size of inauguration crowds, the authors argue that social factors, not individual psychology, are what’s essential to understanding the persistence of false belief and that we must know how those social forces work in order to fight misinformation effectively."–Publisher’s description. (shrink)

It has been claimed that epistemic peers, upon discovering that they disagree on some issue, should give up their opposing views and ‘split the difference’. The present paper challenges this claim by showing, with the help of computer simulations, that what the rational response to the discovery of peer disagreement is—whether it is sticking to one’s belief or splitting the difference—depends on factors that are contingent and highly context-sensitive.Keywords: Peer disagreement; Computer simulations; Opinion dynamics; Hegselmann–Krause model; Social epistemology.

In recent years, various computational models have been developed for studying the dynamics of belief formation in a population of epistemically interacting agents that try to determine the numerical value of a given parameter. Whereas in those models, agents’ belief states consist of single numerical beliefs, the present paper describes a model that equips agents with richer belief states containing many beliefs that, moreover, are logically interconnected. Correspondingly, the truth the agents are after is a theory (a set of sentences (...) of a given language) rather than a numerical value. The agents epistemically interact with each other and also receive evidence in varying degrees of informativeness about the truth. We use computer simulations to study how fast and accurately such populations as wholes are able to approach the truth under differing combinations of settings of the key parameters of the model, such as the degree of informativeness of the evidence and the weight the agents give to the evidence. (shrink)

Hegselmann and Krause have developed a simple yet powerful computational model for studying the opinion dynamics in societies of epistemically interacting truth-seeking agents. We present various extensions of this model and show their relevance to the investigation of socio-epistemic questions, with an emphasis on normative questions.

Two models are developed for updating opinions in social networks under situations where certain beliefs might be considered to be competing. These two models represent different attitudes of people towards the perceived conflict between beliefs. In both models agents have a degree of tolerance, which represents the extent to which the agent takes into account the differing beliefs of other agents, and a degree of conflict, which represents the extent to which two beliefs are considered to be competing. Computer simulations (...) are used to determine how the opinion dynamics are affected by the inclusion of conflict. Results show that conflict can enhance the formation of consensus within the network in certain circumstances according to one of the models. (shrink)

Resumen. Se muestran, discuten y analizan una selección de los modelos más importantes de innovaciónsocial que sobresalen actualmente: Modelo basado en el individuo para la Difusión de la Innovación, Modelode Innovación en el Sector Público, El Modelo de Comunidades de Innovación o CDI, Modelo Alternativo deInnovación Local , y Modelo de Innovación Social Local. Los autores piensan que las iniciativasde gobierno socialmente innovadoras promovidas por agentes no tradicionales y centradas en torno a losproyectos de desarrollo zonal es probable que tengan (...) el mayor potencial para expandir y acumular el poder detransformar los discursos y prácticas establecidas de gobierno, donde tengan resonancia con cambios en ladinámica de las culturas subyacentes de gobernabilidad y donde las fuerzas exógenas también promuevanideas y prácticas paralelas. Solo, incluso si ablandan los límites, su destino es probable que sea laincorporación a una establecida práctica de "corriente principal" más que la transformación de los procesos degobierno dominantes, tal vez con algunas semillas dejadas en torno a memorias institucionales y a culturas degobierno para que puedan construir los transformadores de futuro.Palabras claves. Innovación, innovación social, modelos de innovación, gobierno, sector público.. A selection of the most important models of social innovation that stand today Are shown,discussed and analyzed: the individual-based model for the Diffusion of Innovation, Model of Innovation inthe Public Sector, Model Innovation Communities, Alternative Model for Local Innovation and Local SocialInnovation Model. The authors believe that socially progressive government initiatives promoted by nontraditionaland focused on the area development projects are likely to have the greatest potential to expandand accumulate the power to transform established discourses and practices of government, where they haveresonance with changes in the dynamics of the underlying governance and cultures where exogenous forcesalso promote ideas and practices parallel. Alone, even if the boundaries soften their fate is likely to be joiningan established practice of "mainstream" rather than the transformation of key governance processes, perhapswith some seeds left around institutional memories and cultures government so they can build futureprocessors.Keywords. Innovation, social innovation, innovation models, government, public sector. (shrink)