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Analog Simulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Russell Trenholme*
Affiliation:
Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science University of Minnesota
*
Send reprint requests to the author, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, 315 Ford Hall, 224 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.

Abstract

The distinction between analog and digital representation is reexamined; it emerges that a more fundamental distinction is that between symbolic and analog simulation. Analog simulation is analyzed in terms of a (near) isomorphism of causal structures between a simulating and a simulated process. It is then argued that a core concept, naturalistic analog simulation, may play a role in a bottom-up theory of adaptive behavior which provides an alternative to representational analyses. The appendix discusses some formal conditions for naturalistic analog simulation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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