Computer Programs as Scientific Theories
Last Update: Friday, 21 July 2023 |
Note 1: Many of these items are online; links are given where they are known. Other items may also be online; an internet search should help you find them.
Note 2: In general, works are listed in chronological order.
(This makes it easier to follow the historical development of ideas.)
§14.2: Simulations:
And consider this: "Copies retain semantic values of their originals in
virtue of similarity … .
When this notion of correspondence is
spelled
out more precisely, it turns out that it underlies a number of uses of the
term `information' … ."
(Miłkowski 2023,
p. 489)
contains useful, real-life examples of ways in which
simulations (and theories) can fail to be precise models of reality, and it
discusses "the illusion that the virtual
is real" (quoting Rebecca Mercuri).
It may be a function; the question is whether it is a computable
function.
§14.2.4: Theories:
§14.3: Computer Programs Are Theories
§14.3.3: Simon's Argument from Prediction
Downes, S. (1990). Herbert Simon's computational models of scientific
discovery. PSA: Proceedings of the
[1990] Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association,
1:97–108.
"Just because two things share some properties
in common does not mean that one models the other.
Indeed, if it did, it would mean that everything models
everything else. There must be at least a plausible
claim of some similarity in the ways in which such properties
are realized in the model and the thing being modeled."
(§IV, final paragraph)
§14.2.2: Simulation vs. Imitation:
"After all, even digestion is 'like' computing in some sense: it can be
described as a function that take as input undigested-food and produces
as output digested-food. Surely, however, this is a poor reason for
regarding stomachs as computers." (p. 327)
Copyright © 2023 by
William J. Rapaport
(rapaport@buffalo.edu)
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/OR/A0fr14.html-20230721