Realism vs Instrumentalism

In case you forgot about that whole Virgin-Mary-in-a-grilled-cheese thing that happened ten years ago... it's back (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4034787.stm). And it's a great opportunity to take a good, hard look at science, and ask how many scientists are looking for a Virgin Mary in their grilled cheese sandiwch.

The root cause of the grilled cheese incident is the tendency of human beings to anthropomorphize - to project themselves, their ideas, and their beliefs onto the world around them (which, often enough to be troubling, includes grilled cheese sandwiches and toast). This is an activity central to religion, and performed with fervor by the religious (every time someone claims an event is a miracle, or an act of God; every time a prayer is answered, or God gives a sign). But this is not an inherently religious activity - it's an inherently human activity. And because science is performed by human beings, it happens in science as well.

This isn't necessarily a bad characteristic. The brain tends toward pattern-seeking, which is a trait of our brains that has evolved out of usefulness. It makes the brain the incredibly complex and powerful "machine" that it is - capable of outsmarting a supercomputer in a chess game, or outclocking computational algorithms. Nevertheless, this useful characteristic also leads us astray, into realms of weird and subjective half-truths. Rather than seeing events as perfectly random, as being a coincidence, the brain insists that there must be patterns - that everything must take on meaning - that there must be a cause behind every effect we see, or think we see.

We project conception onto perception, and we begin to perceive what we conceive.

Is this bad? It certainly can be. When we perceive what we conceive, we can end up doing what is admittedly the human thing to do: romanticizing the pattern-finding , focusing on the coincidences and man-made patterns, and often mis-identifying trends. Discovering fundamental patterns, but a pattern is not always an effect of something bigger Recognition of patterns where there are none

nothing new nietzsche goes beyond science

(History of perception of matter: biological matter - everything composed of cells, breakdown of "fundamental unit" history of medicine... invention of causes proven to be wrong matter - thing in itself, properties in themselves, inherent properties... turned on its head by discovery of... ____?)

(Nietzsche)

Mathematics... example of mathematics from Escher that describes something inherent to nature Well, here's a reason why it is not exactly inherent to nature Here's an imperfection

Discovering fundamental patterns, but a pattern is not always an effect of something bigger Recognition of patterns where there are none

Discussion of how mathematics works What is mathematics? simply put, mathematics is a language, a language for describing what we perceive. The language is based on logic, and provides one with many tools to describe nature

Some look at this fact and are astounded - astounded by the way that nature "seems to" follow mathematics perfectly, that we can describe the propagation of a wave using partial differential equations, that the equations of motion for plenets express exactly how those planets will behave.

This perspective is wrong, or at least short-sighted. Ignorance of science history.

Instrumentalism

• in economics - Marx's idea of perception, us perceiving objects in themselves instead of being conscious of how we perceive

Conversation with Dan...

(Open with human being recognizing pattern where there is none...?)

Explain instrumentalist and realist positions Conceptually, using Nietzsche/religion/subjectivism and how we project ourselves onto the things we see Problem with seeing things as dual appearance/thing-in-itself

Extend that dual perspective to mathematics Realists seeing mathematics as inherent to nature Human beings recognizing patterns where there are none

To understand better how mathematics actually works, need to first discuss language Language: what is language, how is language used bunch of arbitrary tags Abstracting complexity We come to confuse the concept/tag with the thing itself, see language as "true" when in fact is arbitrary descriptor (how does this tie in with duality of appearance/thing-in-itself?)

mathematics as a language concepts used to describe how nature behaves How turbulence models have evolved... adding layers of complexity Chemistry/combustion models... doing whatever WORKS, and using different mathematics to describe nature If it doesn't work, we don't use it... It's not that there are such things as "true" governing equations If fluids were not describable using Navier-Stokes equations, we would not use N-S equations to describe fluids

(Mathematics: Loss of Certainty quotes...)

Instrumentalist perspective Language, mathematics, governing equations, models, theories, these are all just instruments, with which we come to a better understanding of how the world works

Why does this matter? It matters because simulation is emerging as a new tool for science Important to understand, philosophically, what's real and what's true And to understand what "real" means, and what "true" means This is important to understanding how we can learn things from simulation How do we know things? How do we synthesize knowledge?

How do you learn from a thought experiment? Thought experiments are not experiments at all You can't learn from thought experiments that are isolated from reality

Example thought experiment Toy bridge Application of incorrect/inapplicable rule of thumb

What if simulations are applying incorrect governing equations? incorrect models? What if that simulation is of a jet engine for a commercial aircraft?

The question, about simulation, is not just "what can this simulation teach us" Much risk staked on outcome of simulations How much can you trust a simulation/knowledge from simulation?

mach and thought experiments background on thought experiments and what they are what experiments are reason for "experiments"

what mach calls experiments are not experiments at all problem with thinking of thought experiments as experiments do not teach you about reality teach you only about your premises the way a thought experiment works is to take your premises to their logical conclusion then you see if that matches reality

thought experiment is a dual-piece activity a priori piece a posteriori piece verification and validation these steps get mixed in our mental models for a long time, this was the paradigm - this was the only kind of calculator we had to work with it was a biased calculator, but it was the only calculator mental warehouse combining different types of knowledge

now we have new calculator - computer it doesn't know anything about reality cannot combine logical and real knowledge only has logical knowledge

syntax vs semantics

grammatical investigations