Templates, Opacity, and Simulations

Abstract

Retrospective reflections are provided on the papers “Computer Simulations,” “Computational Science and Its Effects,” “The Philosophical Novelty of Computer Simulation Methods,” and “Numerical Experimentation” by Paul Humphreys. Some major themes are that it is the broader category of computational science, including such methods as machine learning, that is of interest, rather than just the narrower field of computer simulations; that numerical experiments and simulations are only analogous in a very weak sense to laboratory experiments; that computational science is a genuine emplacement revolution; and that syntax is of primary importance in computational modeling. Remarks are made on the logical properties of simulations, on the appropriate definition of a simulation, and on the need to take applied mathematics seriously as an autonomous field of study in the philosophy of mathematics. An argument is given for the conclusion that computational transformations preserve the causal origins of data but not their referential content.