What is a Kempelen Box? A Kempelen Box is a database structure
that is placed onto the Web to hold information carrying agents.
It allows the contents of the agent memories to be accessed and
compared directly by visitors to a Web site, without having to
go through a database. Although it looks quite simple, it is in
fact a sophisticated component of a complex, self-evolving
system. The link 'Kempelen Box', in the top menu, provides a
more detail description of its design and the link 'SOE project'
provides an explanation as to how these boxes fit into a wider
system framework. The Kempelen Box Metaphor The data base
structure that holds the agents has been given the name
"Kempelen Box" after the 18th century chess playing machine.
This was a hoax that contained a man hidden inside. A twist to
this theme sees the agents on a stigmergic web site as being
people inside a box. The importance of putting all the agents in
a box is that this box can be treated as an entity in its own
right, with the agents being se