Does matter really matter? Computer simulations, experiments, and materiality

Synthese 169 (3):483-496 (2009)
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Abstract

A number of recent discussions comparing computer simulation and traditional experimentation have focused on the significance of “materiality.” I challenge several claims emerging from this work and suggest that computer simulation studies are material experiments in a straightforward sense. After discussing some of the implications of this material status for the epistemology of computer simulation, I consider the extent to which materiality (in a particular sense) is important when it comes to making justified inferences about target systems on the basis of experimental results.

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Wendy Parker
Virginia Tech

References found in this work

The sciences of the artificial.Herbert Alexander Simon - 1969 - [Cambridge,: M.I.T. Press.
Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics.Peter Galison (ed.) - 1997 - University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Representing and Intervening.Ian Hacking - 1983 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 35 (4):381-390.

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