[Hans Blom, 960311]
(Bill Powers (960306.0930 MST))
You're thinking in terms of general philosophical one-upmanship; I'm
thinking in terms of what we put into a computer simulation that is
supposed to resemble what is inside an organism.
But that _was_ exactly the third meaning of "model" that I gave! And
there is no contradiction, I think. A computer simulation can be an
explanation, but it explains only a single set of observations. If we
want to derive a more general theory, we might want to "abstract"
from the one simulation and propose a more general law. This
procedure has helped a great deal in many cases; one instance that
comes to mind is Holland's analysis of what exactly goes on in
genetic algorithms that makes gene recombination in evolutionary
learning so powerful. Simulations only cannot give this kind of
"deep" understanding.
I think that an introspective approach to model-making has its uses,
but sooner or later you have to stop contemplating your navel and
actually propose a workable model. In other words, at some point you
have to start talking like an engineer, and leave the philosophy in
the coffee-house where arguments can go on forever and are merely a
form of intellectual recreation.
I tend to go the other way. I start as an engineer and discover
(still badly understood) phenomena. Next I think of a higher level, a
theory that explains these and usually also a whole slew of related
phenomena. I agree with you that going to too high a level introduces
speculation. Yet it seems to me that we humans cannot do otherwise;
we have all those hierarchical levels where we can live, and it seems
that we need a picture at all of those levels. The higher the level,
the more fuzzy the level, maybe. Yet an "organizing principle" seems
to be needed. Check, for instance, how much speculation B:CP contains
based on what small part can be rigorous, the description of the
lowest parts of the hierarchy. I tend not to condemn such speculat-
ion; indeed, I tend to view coffee-house discussions as enjoyable and
valuable (if not taken too seriously) because they can define new
directions for research.
When you try to get too general about this problem, you start losing
useful distinctions.
When one tries to get general about any kind of problem, one starts
to invent (a new kind of) mathematics, the most basic kind of
philosophical one-upmanship.
Greetings,
Hans
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Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Dept. of Electrical Engineering Medical Engineering Group
email: j.a.blom@ele.tue.nl
Great man achieves harmony by maintaining differences; small man
achieves harmony by maintaining the commonality. Confucius