Computational Simulation as Theoretical Experiment

Formal models have long been used to inform sociological thought. In the past many of these models have often used the language of mathematics. In essence, sets of variables are related to each other via a system of equations, the values of the variables are interpreted in terms of the intensity or amount of a social phenomenon. In sociology such equations have not been taken in a positivist sense to directly reflect real social intensities or quantities, and the fundamental difficulties of attempting this have been repeatedly pointed out. Sometimes such systems of equations have closed-form solutions but when this is not feasible their results are simulated.