Concept tag
#instrumentalism
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A model can work for decades without being true, and instrumentalism is the honest response
I build computer models of oil reservoirs. We tune them to match years of production data, a process called history matching, and then use them to forecast. Here's the uncomfortable part: several quite different models of the rock underground match the same…
Started by Abdulrahman Al-Qahtani6 replies231 views -
“It’s just a tool” is false: instrumentalism cannot survive the smartphone
I teach philosophy to senior high students in Davao. Whenever we discuss phones, someone says, "A phone is just a tool. It depends how you use it." Everyone nods, and the discussion ends. I want to argue that this sentence is false,…
Started by Rowena Abellana5 replies196 views -
Is Nāgārjuna’s conventional truth a kind of instrumentalism about science?
In the tea houses on the Annapurna circuit I have been reading Nāgārjuna's Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way with a commentary a monk in Manang gave me. Last season a client of mine, a physicist, explained over dal bhat that some…
Started by Nima Tsering Gurung5 replies143 views -
Friedman’s billiard player: is predictive success really all a model owes us?
I build credit-scoring models for a mobile-money company in Nairobi. My models predict, quite well, who will repay a small loan, using patterns in phone and payment records. They do not describe why anyone repays. Some of the strongest predictors are things…
Started by Wanjiru Kamau4 replies120 views