Oil and Water do Mix: Social Science Meets Engineering Towards a Transdisciplinary Perspective on Cyberworlds

Abstract

The study of cyberworlds and their design is now a well established field in computer science & engineering. In parallel, within the social sciences there is also a growing corpus of research regarding the subjective, psychological, social and cultural aspects of cyberworlds such as: human cognition as a base for A.I., social systems modeling and complexity, social networks and group formation, virtual identity, cybereconomy and cyberculture; among others. In this paper, the author presents a brief layered overview of these themes with the aim of providing the reader with an introduction of how cyberworlds can be studied through a transdisciplinary perspective in which both social science and engineering can coexist towards a holistic understanding