Speaker: Mazviita Chirimuuta (Senior Lecturer in philosophy at Edinburgh University, UK)
Date: Tuesday 11 May 2021
Time: 15-17 h (Central European Time, i.e. Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin).
Location: online lecture. Zoom link: https://radbouduniversity.zoom.us/j/86981097242?pwd=UXU1WWgrYUVYcTk2MFZCMzI3N0t5UT09
Video of the talk
Prediction, Comprehension, and the Limits of Science
In answer to the question, “What is the history of science the history of?”, Peter Dear (2005) proposes that a defining characteristic of modern science is the hybridisation of the projects of instrumentality (the achievement of technological goals through accurate prediction of material occurrences) and natural philosophy (the supposedly disinterested attempt to understand the workings nature). Building on my recent work on the trade-off between prediction and understanding—how the paired goals of prediction and understanding are pulling apart in recent neuroscience reliant on advanced machine learning technology—in this talk I examine the wider implications of these developments. If neuroscientific research becomes over-incentivised to serve technological goals, it could be that the less tangible goal of understanding the brain falls into the shadows, and the resulting practice will have morphed away from being a science, in the sense defined by Dear. Moreover, the finding that for highly complex systems such as neuronal ones, the desiderata of prediction and understanding cannot be jointly satisfied suggests that the systems in nature that are amenable to scientific knowledge in this classic sense (of affording representations that yield both understanding and instrumental control) are only a subset of all the natural systems that scientists may seek to investigate. In other words, the implication is that there are limits to the scope of science.
Mazviita Chirimuuta is a Senior Lecturer in philosophy at Edinburgh University, with interests in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, especially in colour perception. Her 2015 book Outside Color: Perceptual Science and the Puzzle of Color in Philosophy draws on history, philosophy and recent scientific studies to offer a novel and thorough answer to the ancient question of what colour is and how we perceive it. Recently, she has worked on the topic of explanation in neuroscience. And she is one of the leading authors on non-causal explanations in philosophy of neuroscience.
For more information about The Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience and the program of talks for this semester, please click here.
Organiser(s): Daniel Kostic, Henk de Regt, Leon de Bruin, Marc Slors, Peter Hagoort
and Gerrit Glas.
Date: Tuesday 11 May 2021
Time: 15-17 h (Central European Time, i.e. Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin).
Location: online lecture. Zoom link: https://radbouduniversity.zoom.us/j/86981097242?pwd=UXU1WWgrYUVYcTk2MFZCMzI3N0t5UT09
Video of the talk
Prediction, Comprehension, and the Limits of Science
In answer to the question, “What is the history of science the history of?”, Peter Dear (2005) proposes that a defining characteristic of modern science is the hybridisation of the projects of instrumentality (the achievement of technological goals through accurate prediction of material occurrences) and natural philosophy (the supposedly disinterested attempt to understand the workings nature). Building on my recent work on the trade-off between prediction and understanding—how the paired goals of prediction and understanding are pulling apart in recent neuroscience reliant on advanced machine learning technology—in this talk I examine the wider implications of these developments. If neuroscientific research becomes over-incentivised to serve technological goals, it could be that the less tangible goal of understanding the brain falls into the shadows, and the resulting practice will have morphed away from being a science, in the sense defined by Dear. Moreover, the finding that for highly complex systems such as neuronal ones, the desiderata of prediction and understanding cannot be jointly satisfied suggests that the systems in nature that are amenable to scientific knowledge in this classic sense (of affording representations that yield both understanding and instrumental control) are only a subset of all the natural systems that scientists may seek to investigate. In other words, the implication is that there are limits to the scope of science.
Mazviita Chirimuuta is a Senior Lecturer in philosophy at Edinburgh University, with interests in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, especially in colour perception. Her 2015 book Outside Color: Perceptual Science and the Puzzle of Color in Philosophy draws on history, philosophy and recent scientific studies to offer a novel and thorough answer to the ancient question of what colour is and how we perceive it. Recently, she has worked on the topic of explanation in neuroscience. And she is one of the leading authors on non-causal explanations in philosophy of neuroscience.
For more information about The Dutch Distinguished Lecture Series in Philosophy and Neuroscience and the program of talks for this semester, please click here.
Organiser(s): Daniel Kostic, Henk de Regt, Leon de Bruin, Marc Slors, Peter Hagoort
and Gerrit Glas.