Abstract
This chapter discusses ways in which the rise of computational science has changed the epistemplogy and metaphysics of science. It argues that computational science constitutes neither a Kuhnian revolution nor a “Hacking Revolution”, but an emplacement revolution.
This is a slightly revised version of a paper that originally appeared in the ZiF Mitteilungen, Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung, Bielefeld, 2008.
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Notes
- 1.
I identify its origins with the use of electronic computers to perform Monte Carlo calculations at Los Alamos and John Mauchley’s suggestion that ENIAC could be used for difference equation simulations, rather than for just routine arithmetical calculations. See Metropolis (1993), 127 for the second point. I do not vouch for the accuracy of Metropolis’s recollections on this point although the exact historical turning point, if indeed “exact” ever makes sense in historical claims, is unimportant. For those interested in technoscience, I note that the innovation had its origins at Los Alamos and other military research institutions rather than in industrial applications.
- 2.
There are other domains it has affected, but I shall restrict my discussion to these three.
- 3.
Although the Institute has recently announced that because complexity science is now well established, it must move in new directions.
- 4.
A Kantian approach can be generalized to non-human conceptual categories, although the extent to which humans could understand those alien categories is then a version of one philosophical challenge faced by computational science.
- 5.
Carnap’s Aufbau (Carnap, 1928) allows that a physical basis could be used as the starting point of the reconstruction procedure, but adopts personal experiences as the autopsychological basis. The overwhelming majority of the literature in the logical empiricist tradition took the human senses as the ultimate authority.
- 6.
One can usefully borrow Popper’s thought experiment in which all of the world’s libraries are destroyed and ask how much of contemporary science would be affected if neutron bombs shut down all of the world’s computers. Much of “big science”, especially in physics and astrophysics, would be impossible to carry out.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
To prevent misunderstanding, I note that although the term “law” is used for such things as the weak and strong laws of large numbers in probability theory, this is a courtesy use of the term “law” because these are purely mathematical results. They lack at least the nomological necessity possessed by scientific laws.
- 10.
The use of generative mechanisms as an element of constructivism is noted in Küppers and Lenhard (2006).
- 11.
Luhmann’s culminating work is Luhmann (1997), which is not yet available in an English translation. I am grateful to Tiha von Ghyczy for conversations about various aspects of Luhmann’s thought.
- 12.
The first versions of Thomas Schelling’s agent based models of segregation, and the first versions of Conway’s Game of Life were done “by hand”, but almost all contemporary simulations require abilities that go far beyond what is possible by the unaided human intellect.
- 13.
In my 2004, I used only the straightforward “epistemically opaque” terminology. I now think that distinguishing between the weaker and stronger senses is useful. It is obviously possible to construct definitions of “partially epistemically opaque” and “fully epistemically opaque” which the reader can do himself or herself if so inclined. What constitutes an epistemically relevant element will depend upon the kind of process involved.
- 14.
“Rationale for a Computational Science Center”, unpublished report, University of Virginia, March 2007.
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Humphreys, P. (2011). Computational Science and Its Effects. In: Carrier, M., Nordmann, A. (eds) Science in the Context of Application. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 274. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9051-5_9
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