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Book review. Probability and social science. Methodological relationships between the two approaches, by Daniel Courgeau, Springer, Dordrecht, 2012
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Levins and the legitimacy of artificial worlds
No full textFor practitioners across a growing number of academic disciplines there is a strong sense that simulation models of complex realworld systems provide something that differs fundamentally from that which is offered by mathematical models of the same phenomena. The precise nature of this difference has been difficult to isolate and explain, but, occasionally, it is cashed out in terms of an ability to use simulations to perform “experiments”, e.g., [9]. The notion here is that empirical data derived from costly experiments in the real world might usefully be augmented with data harvested from the right kind of simulation models. We will reserve the term “artificial worlds” for such simulations. In this paper, rather than tackle the problems inherent in this type of claim head on, we will approach them obliquely by asking: what is the root of the attraction of constructing and exploring artificial worlds? By combining insights drawn from the work of Levins, Braitenberg, and Clark, we arrive at an answer that at least partially legitimises artificial worlds by allocating them a useful scientific role, without having to assign the status of empirical enquiry to their exploration
The explanatory value of some post-connectionist models
No full textThought displays a systematicity that cannot be explained by the connections between simple neuron-like units. This is the gist of Fodor and Pylyshyn’s (F & P) challenge to connectionism. Furthermore, they assume thought to be representational and there is no available method to detect representations among the mere relations between neurons and the like. In this talk we would like to question the fairness of the challenge and the correctness of the assumption, but also the need for connectionism to accept the challenge at face value. F & P seem to force us to choose between representationalism and some form of eliminativism with respect to systematicity. However, we will argue that this is a false dilemma. An explanatory pluralism grounded on the idea that thought is a property of the relation between an agent and its environment (and peers, if any) is sufficient to decline F & P’s invitation to answer the challenge by embracing connectionist explanatory fascism. This idea follows a long tradition in theoretical biology. The possibility of such a pluralism will be explored by means of recent examples from artificial life. We will finish by wondering whether, once that we abandon representationalism, it makes sense to distinguish between explanatory and ontological pluralism
Empiricism in artificial life
No full textStrong artificial life research is often thought to rely on Alife systems as sources of novel empirical data. It is hoped that by augmenting our observations of natural life, this novel data can help settle empirical questions, and thereby separate fundamental properties of living systems from those aspects that are merely contingent on the idiosyncrasies of terrestrial evolution. Some authors have questioned whether this approach can be pursued soundly in the absence of a prior, agreed-upon definition of life. Here we compare Alife’s position to that of more orthodox empirical tools that nevertheless suffer from strong theory-dependence. Drawing on these examples, we consider what kind of justification might be needed to underwrite artificial life as empirical enquir
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
The origins of communication revisited
Full text linkQuinn (2001) sought to demonstrate that communication between simulated agents could be evolved without pre-defined communication channels. Quinn’s work was exciting because it showed the potential for ALife models to look at the real origin of communication; however, the work has never been replicated. In order to test the generality of Quinn’s result we use a similar task but a completely different agent architecture. We find that qualitatively similar behaviours emerge, but it is not clear whether they are genuinely communicative. We extend Quinn’s work by adding perceptual noise and internal state to the agents in order to promote ritualization of the nascent signal. Results were inconclusive; philosophical implications are discussed
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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