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A General Black Box Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Mario Bunge
Mario Bunge*
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa
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Abstract

A mathematical theory is proposed and exemplified, which covers an extended class of black boxes. Every kind of stimulus and response is pictured by a channel connecting the box with its environment. The input-output relation is given by a postulate schema according to which the response is, in general, a nonlinear functional of the input. Several examples are worked out: the perfectly transmitting box, the damping box, and the amplifying box. The theory is shown to be (a) an extension of the S-matrix theory and the accompanying channel picture as developed in microphysics; (b) abstract and applicable to any problem involving the transactions of a system (physical, biological, social, etc.) with its milieu; (c) superficial, because unconcerned with either the structure of the box or the nature of the stimuli and responses. The motive for building the theory was to show the capabilities and limitations of the phenomenological approach.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1963 , pp. 346 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1963

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References

1 The channel picture has been taken over from the kinetic theory of nuclear reactions. See John M. Blatt and Victor F. Weisskopf, Theoretical Nuclear Physics (New York: Wiley, 1952), pp. 313 and 517 ff.

2 See, e.g., N. N. Bogoliubov and D. V. Shirkov, Introduction to the Theory of Quantized Fields (New York: Interscience Publishers, Inc., 1959), pp. 197 ff.

3 The structure, scope, and function of phenomenological theories are studied in detail in the author's “Phenomenological Theories”, in M. Bunge (Ed.), The Critical Approach: Essays in Honor of Karl Popper (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1964).