Discrete Event Modeling and Simulation of the Mythical Thought Morphodynamics Involved in Claude Levi Strauss Structural Analysis

Abstract

In this chapter the authors present an exploration into the potential benefits of deploying structuralism analysis in the framework of human and social sciences using computer science modeling and simulation concepts and tools. They describe in detail in this chapter object oriented modeling and simulation software allowing the analysis of folktales. This software is based on the DEVS (Discrete Event System specification) formalism in order to both propose the modeling of a given myth issued from the oral literature of a given culture and the simulation of the corresponding myth transformations as described by Claude Levi Strauss when he dealt with mythical thought. The resulting software has been realized using the PythonDEVS kernel. The validation of the implemented software is performed on a set of folktales issued from corsican mythology and a set of myths from South and North America taken from Claude Levi Strauss’s Mythologiques book series.