IMSc Webinar

A formal model for the emergence of collective memory

R Ramanujam

IMSc

Webinar: join at https://zoom.us/j/9232575195?pwd=OGgxV29CQ1RaUDd5N3NQNWluMDhydz09 According to Susan Sontag, ``What is called /collective memory/ is not a remembering but a stipulating.'' Then one can ask, what is the rationale followed by a group in ascribing / stipulating collective importance to events and their remembering? We propose a formal model for collective memory based on automata, inspired by population protocols and large games. Agents keep  signalling within neighbourhoods, and depending on the support each signal gets, some  signals ``win''. By agents interacting between different neighbourhoods, `influence' spreads and sometimes, a collective signal emerges. As it turns out, the natural model for such memory is the /Parikh automaton/ that computes exactly the semi-linear predicates. We present a simple temporal logic in which we can reason about the model. The work will be presented in TARK 2021, two days after the IMSc TCS seminar.