Scientific Modelling and Emergence

Abstract

If different models of the same process represent alternate groupings of the same fundamental components, why wouldn't one model featuring those components suffice? Can a macro-scale model tell us something more about how a process evolves? Even if the relations and interactions between the different groups of components are in fact a combination of all the relations between individual components? In this thesis I argue for a representational pluralist position, i.e. I argue that different models of the same process can be complementary. To establish this idea, I first illustrate how a scientific model of an information processing system can be formed, using an example from the Cognitive Sciences; a model of working memory. Consequently, different rationales are explored that could support the idea that different models of the same process can be complementary. The theoretical framework provided by Gillett will be employed to clarify the different viable views. To illustrate the two main views, scientific reductionism and scientific emergentism, an example of a cellular automaton will be employed. The first position, scientific reductionism, states that all the relations and interactions between the different groups of components are, in fact, relations between individual components. The main challenge of the scientific reductionist is to somehow combine this idea with the idea that macro-scale models can be complementary in some cases. The second position, scientific emergentism, states that there might be cases in which relations between groups are not a set of relations between individuals, but rather only exist between groups. With as a result that not all behaviour of the individual components is accounted for by local interactions and relations. The main challenge of the emergentist is to explain how individual components can be influenced by relations that hold on a macro-scale, between groups. The example of the cellular automaton helps to see what the differences between both positions are, but does not yet show how the second position is actually thought to work. In the last section I will attempt to further elaborate on this, but the challenge will stay far from resolved.