The New Fiction View of Models

Salis, Fiora

doi:10.1093/bjps/axz015

Cited by 26 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…But we could still assume that Markov blankets are fictional objects. There are various ways of conceiving of scientific models as fictional objects (Frigg 2010 ; Frigg and Nguyen 2016 ; Salis 2019 ).…”

Section: As Fictional Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical analysis of Markovian monism

Beni

2021

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Free Energy Principle underlies a unifying framework that integrates theories of origins of life, cognition, and action. Recently, FEP has been developed into a Markovian monist perspective (Friston et al. in BC 102: 227–260, 2020). The paper expresses scepticism about the validity of arguments for Markovian monism. The critique is based on the assumption that Markovian models are scientific models, and while we may defend ontological theories about the nature of scientific models, we could not read off metaphysical theses about the nature of target systems (self-organising conscious systems, in the present context) from our theories of nature of scientific models (Markov blankets). The paper draws attention to different ways of understanding Markovian models, as material entities, fictional entities, and mathematical structures. I argue that none of these interpretations contributes to the defence of a metaphysical stance (either in terms of neutral monism or reductive physicalism). This is because scientific representation is a sophisticated process, and properties of Markovian models—such as the property of being neither physical nor mental—could not be projected onto their targets to determine the ontological properties of targets easily.

show abstract

Section: As Fictional Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical analysis of Markovian monism

Beni

2021

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The sentences in works of fiction are considered by John Woods to be neither true nor false since they have no reference (Woods 2018 p3). If one characterises models in this way they might have some resemblance to a literary fiction and perhaps literary theory may cast some light on the role of models in science (Salis 2019). Woods has some misgivings about such a project (Woods 2019), discussed in section 1.4 of this paper.…”

Section: Fictionalism and Model Based Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Models provide the best description of the way science is constructed, and it may be that literary theory provides a way to understand these models (Salis 2019). Are scientific models visible when the text is dissected?…”

Section: Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Locating Narrative in Scientific Papers

Toth¹

2021

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The conclusion they [animal psychologists] draw from mutilated bodies applies not to animals in the free state but to man as he is today. It shows that because he does injury to animals, he and he alone in all creation voluntarily functions as mechanically, as blindly and automatically as the twitching limbs of the victim which the specialist knows how to turn to account. The professor at the dissecting table defines these spasms scientifically as reflexes, just as the soothsayers at the altar once proclaimed them to be signs vouchsafed by his gods. Reason, mercilessly advancing, belongs to man. The animal, from which he draws his bloody conclusion, knows only irrational terror and the urge to make an escape from which he is cut off.

show abstract

“…Godfrey- Smith's (2006) seminal article on model-based theoretical strategy has provided a starting point for several articles addressing fiction (e.g. Frigg 2010;Knuuttila 2017;Salis 2019). In discussing models as indirect representations, Godfrey- Smith (2006) comes up with two perspectives on fiction that do not necessarily align.…”

Section: Fictions As Imagined-objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthetic fictions: turning imagined biological systems into concrete ones

Knuuttila

Koskinen

2020

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The recent discussion of fictional models has focused on imagination, implicitly considering fictions as something nonconcrete. We present two cases from synthetic biology that can be viewed as concrete fictions. Both minimal cells and alternative genetic systems are modal in nature: they, as well as their abstract cousins, can be used to study unactualized possibilia. We approach these synthetic constructs through Vaihinger’s notion of a semi-fiction and Goodman’s notion of semifactuality. Our study highlights the relative existence of such concrete fictions. Before their realizations neither minimal cells nor alternative genetic systems were any well-defined objects, and the subsequent experimental work has given more content to these originally schematic imaginings. But it is as yet unclear whether individual members of these heterogeneous groups of somewhat functional synthetic constructs will eventually turn out to be fully realizable, remain only partially realizable, or prove outright impossible.

show abstract

The New Fiction View of Models

Cited by 26 publications

References 51 publications

A critical analysis of Markovian monism

A critical analysis of Markovian monism

Locating Narrative in Scientific Papers

Synthetic fictions: turning imagined biological systems into concrete ones

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About