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1.
Michael E. Gorman 《Foundations of Science》2008,13(1):89-97
As computating technologies become ubiquitous and at least partly autonomous, they will have increasing impact on societies,
both in the developed and developing worlds. This article outlines a framework for guiding emerging technologies in directions
that promise social as well as technical progress. Multiple stakeholders will have to be engaged in dialogues over new technological
directions, forming trading zones in which knowledge and resources are exchanged. Such discussions will have to incorporate
cultural and individual values.
相似文献
Michael E. GormanEmail: |
2.
Helena Knyazeva 《Foundations of Science》2009,14(3):167-179
The modern conception of enactive cognition is under discussion from the standpoint concerning the notions of nonlinear dynamics
and synergetics. The contribution of Francisco Varela and his precursors is considered. It is shown that the perceptual and
mental processes are bound up with the “architecture” of human body and nonlinear and circular connecting links between the
subject of cognition and the world constructed by him can be metaphorically called a nonlinear cobweb of cognition. Cognition
is an autopoietic activity because it is directed to the search of elements that are missed; it serves to completing integral
structures.
相似文献
Helena KnyazevaEmail: |
3.
Edward MacKinnon 《Foundations of Science》2007,12(4):295-323
An epistemological interpretation of quantum mechanics hinges on the claim that the distinctive features of quantum mechanics
can be derived from some distinctive features of an observational basis. Old and new variations of this theme are listed.
The program has a limited success in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. The crucial issue is how far it can be extended to
quantum field theory without introducing significant ontological postulates. A C*-formulation covers algebraic quantum field
theory, but not the standard model. Julian Schwinger’s anabatic methodology extended a strict measurement-based formulation
of quantum mechanics through field theory. His extension also excluded the quark hypothesis and the standard model. Quarks
and local gauge invariance are postulates that go beyond the limits of an epistemological interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The ontological significance ascribed to these advances depends on the role accorded ontology.
相似文献
Edward MacKinnonEmail: |
4.
We argue that abduction does not work in isolation from other inference mechanisms and illustrate this through an inference
scheme designed to evaluate multiple hypotheses. We use game theory to relate the abductive system to actions that produce
new information. To enable evaluation of the implications of this approach we have implemented the procedures used to calculate
the impact of new information in a computer model. Experiments with this model display a number of features of collective
belief-revision leading to consensus-formation, such as the influence of bias and prejudice. The scheme of inferential calculations
invokes a Peircian concept of ‘belief’ as the propensity to choose a particular course of action.
相似文献
T. R. AddisEmail: |
5.
In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from
its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change,
“niche construction”. This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders
the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology,
and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is stubbornly difficult to
reconcile with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary
accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these
disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory.
相似文献
Kevin N. LalandEmail: |
6.
The introduction of the notion of family resemblance represented a major shift in Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the meaning of
words, moving away from a belief that words were well defined, to a view that words denoted less well defined categories of
meaning. This paper presents the use of the notion of family resemblance in the area of machine learning as an example of
the benefits that can accrue from adopting the kind of paradigm shift taken by Wittgenstein. The paper presents a model capable
of learning exemplars using the principle of family resemblance and adopting Bayesian networks for a representation of exemplars.
An empirical evaluation is presented on three data sets and shows promising results that suggest that previous assumptions
about the way we categories need reopening.
相似文献
Sunil VaderaEmail: |
7.
Yvon Gauthier 《Foundations of Science》2009,14(3):153-165
This paper aims at a logico-mathematical analysis of the concept of chaos from the point of view of a constructivist philosophy
of physics. The idea of an internal logic of chaos theory is meant as an alternative to a realist conception of chaos. A brief
historical overview of the theory of dynamical systems is provided in order to situate the philosophical problem in the context
of probability theory. A finitary probabilistic account of chaos amounts to the theory of measurement in the line of a quantum-theoretical
foundational perspective and the paper concludes on the non-classical internal logic of chaos theory. Finally, deterministic
chaos points to a philosophy which asserts that chaotic systems are no less measurable than other physical systems where predictable
and non–predictable phenomena intermingle in a constructive theory of measurement.
相似文献
Yvon GauthierEmail: |
8.
Sciences are often regarded as providing the best, or, ideally, exact, knowledge of the world, especially in providing laws
of nature. Ilya Prigogine, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his theory of non-equilibrium chemical processes—this being
also an important attempt to bridge the gap between exact and non-exact sciences [mentioned in the Presentation Speech by
Professor Stig Claesson (nobelprize.org, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977)]—has had this ideal in mind when trying to formulate
a new kind of science. Philosophers of science distinguish theory and reality, examining relations between these two. Nancy
Cartwright’s distinction of fundamental and phenomenological laws, Rein Vihalemm’s conception of the peculiarity of the exact
sciences, and Ronald Giere’s account of models in science and science as a set of models are deployed in this article to criticise
the common view of science and analyse Ilya Prigogine’s view in particular. We will conclude that on a more abstract, philosophical
level, Prigogine’s understanding of science doesn’t differ from the common understanding.
相似文献
Piret KuuskEmail: |
9.
In this paper we describe in some detail a formal computer model of inferential discourse based on a belief system. The key
issue is that a logical model in a computer, based on rational sets, can usefully model a human situation based on irrational
sets. The background of this work is explained elsewhere, as is the issue of rational and irrational sets (Billinge and Addis,
in: Magnani and Dossena (eds.), Computing, philosophy and cognition, 2004; Stepney et al., Journey: Non-classical philosophy—socially
sensitive computing in journeys non-classical computation: A grand challenge for computing research, 2004). The model is based
on the Belief System (Addis and Gooding, Proceedings of the AISB’99 Symposium on Scientific Creativity, 1999) and it provides
a mechanism for choosing queries based on a range of belief. We explain how it provides a way to update the belief based on
query results, thus modelling others’ experience by inference. We also demonstrate that for the same internal experience,
different models can be built for different actors.
相似文献
Tom AddisEmail: |
10.
Yves Bouchard 《Foundations of Science》2007,12(4):325-336
In this paper, I show the complementarity of foundationalism and coherentism with respect to any efficient system of beliefs
by means of a distinction between two types of proposition drawn from an analogy with an axiomatic system. This distinction
is based on the way a given proposition is acknowledged as true, either by declaration (F-proposition) or by preservation
(C-proposition). Within such a perspective, i.e., epistemological complementarism, not only can one see how the usual opposition
between foundationalism and coherentism is irrelevant, but furthermore one can appreciate the reciprocal relation between
these two theories as they refer to two separate epistemological functions involved in the dynamics of constituting and expanding
an epistemic system.
相似文献
Yves BouchardEmail: |
11.
Ekkehard Finkeissen 《Foundations of Science》2008,13(2):143-148
Currently, research is mostly organized in research projects intended to provide results within a limited period of time.
Here, small teams of scientists erratically define single scientific studies, write a proposal, and send it to the refereeing
board. In case of a funding, the study is carried out and the results are published. To optimize the research and reduce the
respective costs and/or raise the outcome, multiple research projects should be organized within a comprehensive research
program. A meta-model (paradigm) can help comprise (a) the representation of the state-of-the-art decision knowledge, (b)
the adding of new research questions, (c) the performing of trials to answer these questions, and (d) the revision of the
current model. It will be discussed how to structure studies within research programs and these within one super-program.
相似文献
Ekkehard FinkeissenEmail: |
12.
Designing models of complex phenomena is a difficult task in engineering that can be tackled by composing a number of partial
models to produce a global model of the phenomena. We propose to embed the partial models in software agents and to implement
their composition as a cooperative negotiation between the agents. The resulting multiagent system provides a global model
of a phenomenon. We applied this approach in modelling two complex physiological processes: the heart rate regulation and
the glucose-insulin metabolism. Beyond the effectiveness demonstrated in these two applications, the idea of using models
associated to software agents to give reason of complex phenomena is in accordance with current tendencies in epistemology,
where it is evident an increasing use of computational models for scientific explanation and analysis. Therefore, our approach
has not only a practical, but also a theoretical significance: agents embedding models are a technology suitable both to representing
and to investigating reality.
相似文献
Francesco AmigoniEmail: |
13.
The “DNA is a program” metaphor is still widely used in Molecular Biology and its popularization. There are good historical
reasons for the use of such a metaphor or theoretical model. Yet we argue that both the metaphor and the model are essentially
inadequate also from the point of view of Physics and Computer Science. Relevant work has already been done, in Biology, criticizing the programming paradigm. We will refer to empirical evidence
and theoretical writings in Biology, although our arguments will be mostly based on a comparison with the use of differential
methods (in Molecular Biology: a mutation or alike is observed or induced and its phenotypic consequences are observed) as
applied in Computer Science and in Physics, where this fundamental tool for empirical investigation originated and acquired
a well-justified status. In particular, as we will argue, the programming paradigm is not theoretically sound as a causal(as in Physics) or deductive(as in Programming) framework for relating the genome to the phenotype, in contrast to the physicalist and computational grounds that this paradigm claims
to propose.
相似文献
Giuseppe LongoEmail: URL: http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo |
14.
Syntactic and structural models specify relationships between their constituents but cannot show what outcomes their interaction
would produce over time in the world. Simulation consists in iterating the states of a model, so as to produce behaviour over
a period of simulated time. Iteration enables us to trace the implications and outcomes of inference rules and other assumptions
implemented in the models that make up a theory. We apply this method to experiments which we treat as models of the particular
aspects of reality they are designed to investigate. Scientific experiments are constantly designed and re-designed in the
context of implementation and use. They mediate between theoretical understanding and the practicalities of engaging with
the empirical and social world. In order to model experiments we need to identify and represent features that all experiments
have in common. We treat these features as parameters of a general model of experiment so that by varying these parameters
different types of experiment can be modelled.
相似文献
D. C. GoodingEmail: |
15.
16.
In this paper we want to examine how the mutual understanding of speakers is reached during a conversation through collaborative
processes, and what role is played by abductive inference (in the Peircean sense) in these processes. We do this by bringing
together contributions coming from a variety of disciplines, such as logic, philosophy of language and psychology. When speakers
are engaged in a conversation, they refer to a supposed common ground: every participant ascribes to the others some knowledge,
belief, opinion etc. on which to rely in order to reach mutual understanding. As the conversation unfolds, this common ground
is continually corrected and reshaped by the interchanges. An abductive reasoning takes place, in a collaborative setting,
in order to build new possible theories about the common ground. In reconstructing this process through the use of a working
example, we argue that the integration of a collaborative perspective within the Peircean theory of abduction can help to
solve some of the drawbacks that the critics of the latter have outlined, for example its permissivity and non generativity.
相似文献
Roberta FerrarioEmail: |
17.
Albrecht Heeffer 《Foundations of Science》2008,13(2):149-161
Historians of science find it difficult to pinpoint to an exact period in which symbolic algebra came into existence. This
can be explained partly because the historical process leading to this breakthrough in mathematics has been a complex and
diffuse one. On the other hand, it might also be the case that in the early twentieth century, historians of mathematics over
emphasized the achievements in algebraic procedures and underestimated the conceptual changes leading to symbolic algebra.
This paper attempts to provide a more precise setting for the historical context in which this decisive step to symbolic reasoning
took place. For that purpose we will consider algebraic problem solving as model-based reasoning and symbolic representation
as a model. This allows us to characterize the emergence of symbolic algebra as a shift from a geometrical to a symbolic mode
of representation. The use of the symbolic as a model will be situated in the context of mercantilism where merchant activity
of exchange has led to reciprocal relations between money and wealth.
相似文献
Albrecht HeefferEmail: |
18.
L. Dennis R. W. Gray L. H. Kauffman J. Brender McNair N. J. Woolf 《Foundations of Science》2009,14(3):217-238
We propose a framework for analyzing the development, operation and failure to survive of all things, living, non-living or
organized groupings. This framework is a sequence of developments that improve survival capability. Framework processes range
from origination of any entity/system, to the development of increased survival capability and development of life-forms and
organizations that use intelligence. This work deals with a series of developmental changes that arise from the uncovering
of emergent properties. The framework is intended to be general, but we see a potential to apply it to scientific topics such
as the exploration of the origin of life or the search for life beyond Earth, and to understand some biological issues in
evolution and symbiosis, and also to apply to social systems that do not seem to be operating well, to determine their problems
and correct them.
相似文献
N. J. WoolfEmail: |
19.
Melvin S. Steinberg 《Foundations of Science》2008,13(2):163-175
Investigations with electrometers in the 1770s led Volta to envision mobile charge in electrical conductors as a compressible
fluid. A pressure-like condition in this fluid, which Volta described as the fluid’s “effort to push itself out” of its conducting
container, was the causal agent that makes the fluid move. In this paper I discuss Volta’s use of analogy and imagery in model
building, and compare with a successful contemporary conceptual approach to introducing ideas about electric potential in
instruction. The concept that today is called “electric potential” was defined mathematically by Poisson in 1811. It was understood
after about 1850 to predict the same results in conducting matter as Volta’s pressure-like concept—and to predict electrostatic
effects in the exterior space where Volta’s concept had nothing to say. Complete quantification in addition to greater generality
made the mathematical concept a superior research tool for scientists. However, its spreading use in instruction has marginalized
approaches to model building based on the analogy and imagery resources that students bring into the classroom. Data from
pre and post testing in high schools show greater conceptual and confidence gains using the new conceptual approach than using
conventional instruction. This provides evidence for reviving Volta’s compressible fluid model as an intuitive foundation
which can then be modified to include electrostatic distant action. Volta tried to modify his compressible fluid model to
include distant action, using imagery borrowed from distant heating by a flame. This project remained incomplete, because
he did not envision an external field mediating the heating. However, pursuing Volta’s strategy of model modification to completion
now enables students taught with the new conceptual approach to add distant action to an initial compressible fluid model.
I suggest that a partial correspondence to the evolving model sequence that works for beginning students can help illuminate
Volta’s use of intermediate explanatory models.
相似文献
Melvin S. SteinbergEmail: |
20.
John J. Sung 《Foundations of Science》2008,13(2):177-193
Scientific anomalies are observations and facts that contradict current scientific theories and they are instrumental in scientific
theory change. Philosophers of science have approached scientific theory change from different perspectives as Darden (Theory
change in science: Strategies from Mendelian genetics, 1991) observes: Lakatos (In: Lakatos, Musgrave (eds) Criticism and
the growth of knowledge, 1970) approaches it as a progressive “research programmes” consisting of incremental improvements
(“monster barring” in Lakatos, Proofs and refutations: The logic of mathematical discovery, 1976), Kuhn (The structure of
scientific revolutions, 1996) observes that changes in “paradigms” are instigated by a crisis from some anomaly, and Hanson
(In: Feigl, Maxwell (eds) Current issues in the philosophy of science, 1961) proposes that discovery does not begin with hypothesis
but with some “problematic phenomena requiring explanation”. Even though anomalies are important in all of these approaches
to scientific theory change, there have been only few investigations into the specific role anomalies play in scientific theory
change. Furthermore, much of these approaches focus on the theories themselves and not on how the scientists and their experiments
bring about scientific change (Gooding, Experiment and the making of meaning: Human agency in scientific observation and experiment,
1990). To address these issues, this paper approaches scientific anomaly resolution from a meaning construction point of view.
Conceptual integration theory (Fauconnier and Turner, Cogn Sci 22:133–187, 1996; The way we think: Conceptual blending and
mind’s hidden complexities, 2002) from cognitive linguistics describes how one constructs meaning from various stimuli, such
as text and diagrams, through conceptual integration or blending. The conceptual integration networks that describe the conceptual
integration process characterize cognition that occurs unconsciously during meaning construction. These same networks are
used to describe some of the cognition while resolving an anomaly in molecular genetics called RNA interference (RNAi) in
a case study. The RNAi case study is a cognitive-historical reconstruction (Nersessian, In: Giere (ed) Cognitive models of
science, 1992) that reconstructs how the RNAi anomaly was resolved. This reconstruction traces four relevant molecular genetics
publications in describing the cognition necessary in accounting for how RNAi was resolved through strategies (Darden 1991),
abductive reasoning (Peirce, In: Hartshorne, Weiss (eds) Collected papers, 1958), and experimental reasoning (Gooding 1990).
The results of the case study show that experiments play a crucial role in formulating an explanation of the RNAi anomaly
and the integration networks describe the experiments’ role. Furthermore, these results suggest that RNAi anomaly resolution
is embodied. It is embodied in a sense that cognition described in the cognitive-historical reconstruction is experientially
based.
相似文献
John J. SungEmail: |