MCMP – Philosophy of Science

Peter Pickl (LMU) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (10 June, 2015) titled "Explaining Macroscopic Systems from Microscopic Principles". Abstract: The revolutionary idea of the late 19th century that the physics of gases can be explained by the dynamics of small, point-like particles had a great influence on physics as well as mathematics and philosophy. This idea has changed our understanding of the physics of macroscopic systems significantly as well as the way we see our universe as a whole. The question of how the connection between the microscopic and the macroscopic world can be explained also arises in other fields, for example the life sciences. Answering this question might have a similar impact on the research in these fields. In the talk I will present recent techniques and results of our research group in deriving macroscopic evolution equations from microscopic principles for certain classical, quantum mechanical and biological systems.

Wolfgang Pietsch (MCTS/TU Munich) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (3 June, 2015) titled "The Causual Nature of Modeling in Data-Intensive Science". Abstract: Abstract: I argue for the causal character of modeling in data-intensive science, contrary to wide-spread claims that big data is only concerned with the search for correlations. After introducing and discussing the concept of data-intensive science, several algorithms are examined with respect to their ability to identify causal relationships. To this purpose, a difference-making account of causation is proposed that broadly stands in the tradition of David Lewis’s counterfactual approach, but fits better the type of evidence used in data-intensive science. The account is inspired by causal inferences of the Mill’s method type. I situate data-intensive modeling within a broader framework of a Duhemian or Cartwrightian scientific epistemology, drawing an analogy to exploratory experimentation.

Berna Kilinç (Boğaziçi University) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (3 June, 2015) titled "Convergence of Iterated Belief Updates". Abstract: One desideratum on belief upgrade operations is that their iteration is truth-tropic, either on finite or infinite streams of reliable information. Under special circumstances repeated Bayesian updating satisfies this desideratum as shown for instance by the Gaifman and Snir theorem. There are a few analogous results in recent research within dynamic epistemic logic: Baltag et al establish the decidability of propositions for some but not all upgrade operations on finite epistemic spaces. In this talk further convergence results will be established for qualitative stable belief.

Alexandra Zinke (Konstanz) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (28 May, 2015) titled "Against Grue Mysteries". Abstract: In a recent paper, Freitag (2015) reduces Goodman’s new riddle of induction to the problem of doxastic dependence. We are not justified in projecting grue because our grue-evidence is doxastically dependent on defeated evidence. I try to implement this solution into an inductive extension of AGM belief revision theory. It turns out that the grue-example is nothing but an inductive version of well-known examples by Hansson (1992), which he uses to argue for base revision: If revision takes place on belief-bases, rather than on logically closed belief sets, we can easily account for the doxastic dependence relations between our beliefs. To handle the grue-case, I introduce the notion of an inductively closed belief-base. If we update on this inductively closed belief-base, the grue problem dissolves.

Gábor Hofer-Szabó (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (28 May, 2015) titled "On Einstein's Reality Criterion". Abstract: In the talk we characterize the different interpretations of QM in an operationalist-frequentist framework and show what entities the different interpretations posit. We define completeness and correctness of an interpretation in terms of how this posited ontology relates to the "real world ontology" posited by principles independent of the interpretations. We argue that the Reality Criterion is just such a principle. We also argue that the EPR argument, making use of the Reality Criterion, is devised to show that certain interpretations of QM are incomplete, whereas Einstein's latter arguments, making no use of the Reality Criterion, are devised to show that the Copenhagen interpretation is simply wrong. Next, investigating the nature of prediction, an essential part of the Reality Criterion, we formulate two hypothesis: (i) the Reality Criterion is a special case of Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle; (ii) it is a special case of Bell's Local Causality Principle.

Bernard Grofman (Irvine) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (13 May, 2015) titled "Predicting Outcomes in Five Person Spatial Games: An Aspiration Model Approach". Abstract: There are many situations where voters must choose a single alternative and where both the voters and the alternatives can be characterized as points in a one or two or more dimensional policy space. In committees and legislatures, often choice among these alternatives will be done via a decision agenda in which alternatives are eliminated until a choice is made, sometimes requiring a final vote against the status quo. A common form for such an agenda is what has been called by Black (1958) standard amendment procedure, a “king of the hill” procedure in which there is an initial alternative who is paired against another alternative, with the winner of that pairwise contest becoming the new winner, and the processes continuing until either the set of feasible alternatives is exhausted or there is a successful motion for cloture. Beginning with a seminal experiment on five person voting games conducted by Plott and Fiorina (1978), there have been a number of experiments on committee voting games with an potentially infinite set of alternatives embedded in a two dimensional policy space. In games where there is a core, i.e., an alternative which, for an odd number of voters, can defeat each and every other alternative in paired comparison, outcomes at or near the core are chosen, but there is also considerable clustering of outcomes even in games without a core. A major concern of the literature has been to develop models to explain the pattern of that clustering in non-core situations. Here, after reviewing the present state of the art, we offer a new family of models based on the Siegel-Simon aspiration approach, in which voters satisfice by choosing “acceptable” alternative, and the set of outcomes that are considered acceptable by each voter changes as the game continues.

Bernard Grofman (Irvine) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (13 May, 2015) titled "Predicting Outcomes in Five Person Spatial Games: An Aspiration Model Approach". Abstract: There are many situations where voters must choose a single alternative and where both the voters and the alternatives can be characterized as points in a one or two or more dimensional policy space. In committees and legislatures, often choice among these alternatives will be done via a decision agenda in which alternatives are eliminated until a choice is made, sometimes requiring a final vote against the status quo. A common form for such an agenda is what has been called by Black (1958) standard amendment procedure, a “king of the hill” procedure in which there is an initial alternative who is paired against another alternative, with the winner of that pairwise contest becoming the new winner, and the processes continuing until either the set of feasible alternatives is exhausted or there is a successful motion for cloture. Beginning with a seminal experiment on five person voting games conducted by Plott and Fiorina (1978), there have been a number of experiments on committee voting games with an potentially infinite set of alternatives embedded in a two dimensional policy space. In games where there is a core, i.e., an alternative which, for an odd number of voters, can defeat each and every other alternative in paired comparison, outcomes at or near the core are chosen, but there is also considerable clustering of outcomes even in games without a core. A major concern of the literature has been to develop models to explain the pattern of that clustering in non-core situations. Here, after reviewing the present state of the art, we offer a new family of models based on the Siegel-Simon aspiration approach, in which voters satisfice by choosing “acceptable” alternative, and the set of outcomes that are considered acceptable by each voter changes as the game continues.

Marc Artiga (MCMP) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (7 May, 2015) titled "Modeling Cognitive Representations with Evolutionary Game Theory". Abstract: Cognitive science has been developed on the idea that cognitive systems are representational. Recently, however, some people have challenged this idea. The goal of this talk is to provide some mathematical tools for resolving this question. More precisely, I will defend two claims. First, I will argue that Evolutionary Game Theory can help us establish which states are representations. Secondly, I will defend that this strategy can be used to show that perceptual states (among others) are indeed representational.

Holger Lyre (Magdeburg) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (6 May, 2015) titled "Structures, Mechanisms and Dynamics in Theoretical Neuroscience". Abstract: Proponents of mechanistic explanations have recently proclaimed that all explanations in the neurosciences appeal to mechanisms – including computational and dynamical explanations. The purpose of the talk is to critically assess these statements. I shall defend an understanding of both dynamical and computational explanations according to which they focus on the explanatorily relevant spatiotemporal-cum-causal structures in the target domain. This has impact on at least three important issues: reductionism, multi-realizability, and explanatory relevance. A variety of examples from the theoretical neurosciences shall be used to show that very often the explanatory relevance, burden, and advantage in view of law-like generalizability lies in picking out the relevant structure rather than characterizing mechanisms in all details.

David Wallace (Balliol College) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (15 April, 2015) titled "Philosophy of Statistical Mechanics from an Emergentist Viewpoint". Abstract: I sketch a view of the philosophy of statistical mechanics as (a) concerned primarily with the interrelations between different dynamical systems describing more or less coarse-grained degrees of freedom of a system, and only secondarily with thermodynamic notions like equilibrium and entropy, and (b) informed by developments in contemporary mainstream physics. I develop, as concrete examples, (i) the projection-based approach to kinetic equations developed in the 1970s by Balescu, Prigogine, Zwanzig et al, and (ii) the relevance of quantum mechanics to nominally “classical” systems like the ideal gas.