Mathematical theories and theories as artefacts in the study of other-damaging behaviours

Today the availability of computers with their very large memory and computing power and new theoretical developments based on viewing reality as a complex system induce many researchers to explore if and how mathematically expressed theories can be applied to cognitive and social phenomena. Although these attempts are interesting and they should be pursued, one has the impression that they tend to focus mainly on the regularities present in the available data overlooking the mechanisms and processes which underlie cognitive and social phenomena and explain them. A different approach is using the computer to construct artifacts (agent- based simulations and robotic systems) that try to reproduce the observed regularities by incorporating in the artifact hypotheses about the mechanisms and processes underlying these regularities. Both types of theories may be needed but one does not substitute for the other, and an interesting question is why mathematical theories of physical phenomena appear to capture all which we need to know about physical phenomena while this is not true when mathematical theories are applied to the phenomena studied by cognitive and social scientists. We will discuss these questions with reference to behaviours that damage others and that societies need to find ways to contain to avoid disintegration.