We review and critique a range of perspectives on the scientific role of individual-based evolutionary simulation models as they are used within artificial life. We find that such models have the potential to enrich existing modelling enterprises through their strength in modelling systems of interacting entities. Furthermore, simulation techniques promise to provide theoreticians in various fields with entirely new conceptual, as well as methodological, approaches. However, the precise manner in which simulations can be used as models is not clear. We present two apparently opposed perspectives on this issue: simulation models as "emergent computational thought experiments" and simulation models as realistic simulacra. Through analysing the role that armchair thought experiments play in science, we develop a role for simulation models as opaque thought experiments, that is, thought experiments in which the consequences follow from the premises, but in a non-obvious m...

This paper presents a case study of 3- to 9-year-old children's concepts of size, weight, density, matter, and material kind. Our goal was to examine two claims: (1) that individual concepts undergo differentiation during development; and (2) that young children's concepts are embedded in theory-like structures. To make progress on the first issue, we needed to specify in representational terms what an undifferentiated concept is like and in what sense this undifferentiated concept is a parent of the more differentiated concepts. Our strategy was to use a model of conceptual differentiation suggested by the history of science to guide our search for evidence. In this model, undifferentiated concepts, like differentiated concepts, can be analyzed in terms of their component properties, features, or dimensions. The key difference is that an undifferentiated concept unites certain components which will subsequently be analyzed as components of distinct concepts, and that the undifferentiated concept is embedded in a different theoretical structure from the differentiated concepts. In our study, the same group of 78 children (18 3-year-olds, 18 4-year-olds, 18 5-year-olds, 12 6-7-year-olds, and 12 8-9-year-olds) were given a range of tasks probing their understanding of size, weight, and density; a

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Consider the idea of computing functions using experiments with kinematic systems. We prove that for any set A of natural numbers there exists a 2-dimensional kinematic system BA with a single particle P whose observable behaviour decides n ∈ A for all n ∈ N. The system is a bagatelle and can be designed to operate under (a) Newtonian mechanics or (b) Relativistic mechanics. The theorem proves that valid models of mechanical systems can compute all possible functions on discrete data. The proofs show how any information (coded by some A) can be embedded in the structure of a simple kinematic system and retrieved by simple observations of its behaviour. We reflect on this undesirable situation and argue that mechanics must be extended to include a formal theory for performing experiments, which includes the construction of systems. We conjecture that in such an extended mechanics the functions computed by experiments are precisely those computed by algorithms. We set these theorems and ideas in the context of the literature on the general problem “Is physical behaviour computable? ” and state some open problems.

This chapter provides an overview of model-based support for modern decision making. It starts with discussing basic elements of decision making process, including characteristics of complex decision problems, concepts of rationality, and various requirements for model-based support at different stages of decision making process. Then the characteristics of models, and of modeling processes aimed at decision-making support for complex problems are presented. In this part guidelines for model specification and instantiation are illustrated by an actual complex model. This is followed by a discussion of modern methods of model analysis, which include a more detailed discussion of reference point optimization methods, and an outline of methods for sensitivity analysis, and of softly constrained inverse simulation. Finally, an overview of architecture of model-based decision support system is presented.

x- treme from Fodor; she argues that albiexical concepts can be derived by combinations of twenty -three universal, innate primitives. A variety of evidence supports the nativist position. Take the concept of object as a case in point. By objects, I mean bounded, coherent wholes that endure through time and move on spatio-temporally continuous paths. Two extremely convincing lines of argument show this concept to 89 be largely innate. The first is direct empirical evidence demonstrating it in infants as young as two to four months. The second derives from learnability considerations. If one wants to argue that two-month-olds have constructed the concept of an object, one must show, in principle, how they could have done so. From what primitives, and on what evi- dence? Not for lack of trying, nobody has ever shown how this concept could be formed out of some prior set of primitives. What would lead an organism existing in a Quinean perceptual quality space, sensitive only t

this paper I will use 'concept x' and 'meaning of the term "x"' mlerchai .'14y In bulk cases, I refer to mentally represented concepts and meanings. fn Carey I 't15 both linguistic and nonlinguistic methods were employed to diagnose the young 0111d'$ concepts and meanings In every case that I found a difference in meaning of r terni 'x' between the child's lexicon and the adult's, there was a corresponding drlterence i n the concept x, as revealed by patterns of inductive projection, sorting tasks, and other tasks riot requiring the use of the term. 168 the toilet or anything. His idea seems to be that worms are so behaviourally bankrupt that there is no way for the small ones to have a limited repertoire relative to the bigger ones. Therefore, you would not want to call them ' babies'. When pressed by his mother whether you could think of short worms as baby worms, he replied that you could if you wanted to, but then you might as well think of small rocks as baby rocks

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