[Avery Andrews 920827.1428]
On the general theme of Interactionism, the GURU parameters of CROWD
( = Gatherings) produce a very nice Interactionist result: people
to tend to gather in arcs around gurus at gatherings, and a cognitivist
might suppose that this happens because the individuals are trying to
make their collective configuration match an `arc around the guru'
schema. But Bill's model shows that the phenomenon could be a consequence of
the dynamics you get from certain reference levels for proximity and distance.
And in the absence of real evidence that the arc configurations are being
controlled for, the dynamics explanation is clearly superior, on grounds
of parsimony.
Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au