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Creative Strategies Employed in Modelling: A Case Study

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Abstract

This paper examines creative strategies employed inscientific modelling. It is argued that being creativepresents not a discrete event, but rather an ongoingeffort consisting of many individual `creative acts'.These take place over extended periods of time andcan be carried out by different people, working ondifferent aspects of the same project. The example ofextended extragalactic radio sources shows that, inorder to model a complicated phenomenon in itsentirety, the modelling task is split up into smallerproblems that result in several sub-models. This is away of using cognitive resources efficiently and in away which overcomes their limitations. Another aspectof modelling that requires creativity is theemployment of visualisation in order to reassemble,i.e. recreate the unity of, the various sub-models bymeans of visualisation. This illustrates how thecreative effort required to deal with the complexityof the complicated phenomenon of radio sources ischannelled in order to use cognitive resourcesefficiently and to stay within their capacity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Paderborn, Warburger-Str. 100, D-33098, Paderborn, Germany. E-mail

    D.M. Bailer-Jones

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  1. D.M. Bailer-Jones
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Bailer-Jones, D. Creative Strategies Employed in Modelling: A Case Study. Foundations of Science 4, 375–388 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009687632566

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009687632566

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