4 ms·
I agree that this was a great little essay. I like your illustration, but I think your point at the end of your comment disagrees a little with the essay, and
by krupan 16y ago
I agree that this was a great little essay. I like your illustration, but I think your point at the end of your comment disagrees a little with the essay, and I have to disagree with you a little as well. A computational model, such as Maxwell's Equations, is a theory. Creating a simulation of two balls falling would also be formulating a theory. It may be an incorrect theory though, as you point out, and that's where the other leg of science, experimentation (what you refer to as tying back in to the physical world), is necessary.
Taking more from your example, I would agree that scientists today are trying to answer questions by diving right into computational models (theory) without experimentation, but I believe it's because they are tackling questions that are very difficult to experiment with. I don't think that's altogether unprecedented though. There are instances of scientists producing theories without the means to test them throughout history, only to have them proven or disproven by experimentation at much later times.
- frossie 16y agoA computational model [...] is a theory I guess that's where we disagree. I respect your point, and of course I accept we are in a regime where computational models are the only options in some cases (we can't start a whole new universe off to see how it worked). That has no bearing on their limitations, though. I think a computational model is not a theory, it is a theoretical construct. I concede this may seem like splitting hairs to everyone except me.
- infinite8s 16y agoI'm confused on the difference between a theoretical construct and a theory.
- krupan 16y agoI think I am too.
- lg 16y agowhen you have good reason to believe something about model-entities, you don't thereby have good reason to believe it about actual-entities, unless you also have good reason to believe that model-entities are relevantly similar to actual-entities. So the model itself is just a piece of a theory.
- jshen 16y agoisn't a model a functional representation of a theory? I don't see how it is only a piece of a theory if the whole theory is represented in the model and is functional.
- lg 16y agoCan you represent the whole theory in the model? The model would need to represent evidence that its representations of the world are accurate. If that evidence is a mathematical proof, a program could probably encode it. But if it's experimental evidence, I don't know how it could.
- barrkel 16y agoThat seems backwards to me. Theories don't "represent" evidence, experimental or otherwise (I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean, it doesn't make sense to me). You formulate your theory - which is a model of cause and effect - from one set of observations, and test it with another set of observations. The model - the theory - may include facts from experimental evidence, eg G the gravitational constant, but that doesn't seem problematic for theory representation in program form. Theories make predictions about the world. I'd argue they're useless without this. As such, they are function of a prior state, returning the new state. Certainly you can't validate your theory without doing physical experiments, or at least having lots of data that the theory was not based on, to check it. But validation of a theory is distinct from its representation.
- whimsy 16y ago"Theories should pay rent in anticipated experimental data."
- dannyb 16y agoA scientific theory is a self-contained description of a natural phenomena starting from first principles. My interpretation of a theoretical construct is something which is predicted to exist but has not been observed (or cannot be observed due to physical limitations). It can also be a set of results derived from thought experiments but not yet observed experimentally. I apologize if anyone else has mentioned this, but I think most working scientists are uncomfortable with purely computational work and "theories" because they don't appear to be falsifiable within the framework developed by Popper. Current global climate models (GCM) are only subject to verifiability and this relegates them to a lower status then, say, Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's equations are capable of being used to explain almost all macroscopic electrodynamic phenomena, at least within the confines of classical physics. OTOH, there is no proper theory of the climate than can be treated with equal footing. There are only computational models and input data. There is a large amount of parameterization and data treatment (cynics would say massaging) that need to be done to get the models to converge.
- krupan 16y agoI whole heartedly agree that computational models have big pitfalls. I would argue that good theories are stated as simply and directly as possible, and that it's easy to make computer simulations (AKA computational models, AKA theories) that are not even close to simple.