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Open Access

Computational History: Challenges and Opportunities of Formal Approaches

Jürgen Jost1,2( ), Roberto Lalli3, Manfred D. Laubichler4,2,3, Eckehard Olbrich1, Jürgen Renn3, Guillermo Restrepo1, Peter F. Stadler5,1,2, Dirk Wintergrün3
Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin 14195, Germany
School of Complex Adaptive Systems and the Global Biosocial Complexity Initiative, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
Department of Computer Science and Interdisciplinary Center for Bioinformatics, Leipzig University, Leipzig 04109, Germany
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Abstract

We propose a program for a computational analysis, based on large scale datasets, of deep conceptual and formal structures, representing the mechanisms of historical transformations in different domains ranging from biological to social, cultural, and knowledge systems. We conceptualize such systems as consisting of complex multi-layer networks. Structural properties of such networks may explain the spreading of innovations. Temporal relations between the dynamics of interacting networks may help to identify causalities. Complex systems may show path and context dependencies. We illustrate our approach by case studies from all those types of systems.

Keywords

big datahistory of sciencenetwork analysiscomputational history

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Journal of Social Computing
Volume 4 Issue 3,
September 2023
Pages 232-242
DOI: 10.23919/JSC.2023.0017
Cite this article:
Jost J, Lalli R, Laubichler MD, et al. Computational History: Challenges and Opportunities of Formal Approaches. Journal of Social Computing, 2023, 4(3): 232-242. https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2023.0017

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Received: 02 June 2023
Accepted: 15 October 2023
Published: 30 September 2023
© The author(s) 2023.

The articles published in this open access journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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