Reconstructing Reality: Models, Mathematics, and Simulations

345 Pages·2015·1.988 MB·English

by  Margaret Morrison

RECONSTRUCTING REALITY
OXFORD STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
General Editor:
Paul Humphreys, University of Virginia
Advisory Board
Anouk Barberousse (European Editor)
Robert W. Batterman
Jeremy Butterfield
Peter Galison
Philip Kitcher
Margaret Morrison
James Woodward
The Book of Evidence
Peter Achinstein
Science, Truth, and Democracy
Philip Kitcher
Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-Locality: A Philosophical Investigation of
Classical Electrodynamics
Mathias Frisch
The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction, and Emergence
Robert W. Batterman
Science and Partial Truth: A Unitary Approach to Models an Scientific Reasoning
Newton C.A. da Costa and Steven French
Inventing Temperature: Measurement and Scientific Progress
Hasok Chang
The Reign of Relativity: Philosophy in Physics 1915–1925
Thomas Ryckman
Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation
James Woodward
Mathematics and Scientific Representation
Christopher Pincock
Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World
Michael Weisberg
Systematicity: The Nature of Science
Paul Hoyningen-Huene
Causation and Its Basis in Fundamental Physics
Douglas Kutach
Reconstructing Reality: Models, Mathematics, and Simulations
Margaret Morrison
RECONSTRUCTING REALITY
Models, Mathematics, and Simulations
Margaret Morrison
1
1
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© Margaret Morrison 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morrison, Margaret, 1954-
Reconstructing reality: models, mathematics, and simulations/Margaret Morrison.
pages cm.—(Oxford studies in philosophy of science)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–938027–5 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Science—Mathematical
models. 2. Physics—Mathematical models. 3. Mathematics—Philosophy. I. Title.
Q158.5.M667 2015
501—dc23
2014010524
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
PART I
MATHEMATICS, EXPLANATION, AND
UNDERSTANDING
1. Abstraction and Idealisation: Understanding via Models 15
2. From the Pure to the Concrete: How Mathematics
Yields Physical Information 50
CONTENTS
PART II
WHERE MODELS MEET THE WORLD: PROBLEMS
AND PERSPECTIVES
3. More Than Make-Believe: Fictions, Models, and Reality 85
4. Mediated Knowledge: Representation and the
Theory-Model Axis 119
5. Making the Best of It: Inconsistent versus
Complementary Models 156
PART III
COMPUTER SIMULATION: THE NEW REALITY
6. Why Materiality Is Not Enough: Models,
Measurement, and Computer Simulation 199
7. Legitimating Simulation: Methodological Issues of
Verification and Validation 248
8. Without It There’s Nothing: The Necessity of
Simulation in the Higgs Search 287
References 317
Index 327
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My greatest institutional debt is to the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, not only for financial sup-
port of the research required for this book but for their generous and
consistent support of my work since graduate school. Without the
many research grants I have received, this work would have taken a
lot longer than it has. . . which means it might never have been com-
pleted. I would also like to thank the Philosophy Department at the
University of Toronto for financial support in preparing the manu-
script for publication.
Personally, my greatest thanks go to Colin Howson, who was
relentless in pestering me to both start and complete the book. His
sense of humour and good advice are unsurpassed, and I am grate-
ful beyond words to be the beneficiary of both. Because the book
is a combination of ideas and material that have been reconfigured
from past work as well as new ventures, the number of people who
have contributed, in one way or another, to the end product are too
numerous to mention. Peter Ohlin has been encouraging all the
way and over a very long period of time. I am also grateful to par-
ticipants at all the many talks and conferences, to referees for written
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
comments on earlier versions of this work that appeared in journals,
and of course to the referees for the book manuscript itself. I have
benefitted enormously from all of their input. Special thanks for vari-
ous comments, suggestions, and conversations about specific issues/
arguments that have made their way into the final manuscript go to
Sorin Bangu, Robert Batterman, Paul Humphreys, Wendy Parker, and
Eran Tal. The first version of the work on simulation was presented
at the Oberlin Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science held in April
2008, and I would like to thank Martin Jones for the invitation and
his generous hospitality. Other parts were presented at a workshop in
June 2008 and a conference in June 2011 at IHPST Paris, where I was
the beneficiary of the hospitality of Anouk Barberousse, Jacques
Dubucs, Marion Vorms, and Julie Jebeile. Themes and ideas from
chapter 2 were presented at The Twenty-fifth Annual International
Workshop on the History and Philosophy of Science entitled
“Mathematical Knowledge and its Applications.” The workshop was
in honour of Mark Steiner and held at Tel Aviv University and the
Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, December 12-14, 2011. I would like
to thank the organisers, Yemima Ben Menachem, Leo Cory and Carl
Posey for their hospitality, and Mark Steiner for his generosity over
the years. The material on simulation and the Large Hadron Collider
was presented at a conference on methods of data collection held in
March 2013 and sponsored by the University of Wuppertal group
on history and philosophy of particle physics. I would like to thank
Koray Karaca and all of his colleagues there for their discussion and
feedback. Last but not least I would like to thank Emily Sacharin at
Oxford University Press for her expert help with various administra-
tive issues, Molly Morrison for her efficiency on the production end
and Kevin Kuhl for compiling the index.
viii
RECONSTRUCTING REALITY