[SydPhil] Reminder: Adrian Currie, ANU @ Wed 14 May 2014 15:30 - 17:30 (Seminars)

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This is a reminder for:

Title: Adrian Currie, ANU
'Laws in Island World'

Abstract: Not all regularities are created equal. Some are mere  
correlations, happenstances: they are just accidents. Others carry natural  
necessity, ground counterfactuals: they are laws. But there is no  
egalitarianism amongst laws either: 'laws' differ in terms of their  
generality, when exceptions occur, and their determinacy. What explains the  
differences between these laws in a scientific context? Drawing on the  
biogeography of 'Island World', a toy model, I offer a speculative but  
hopefully fruitful framework based on the thought that different kinds of  
systems are affected by different types of noise. First, some noise is  
regular: that is, the operations of laws within a system interfere with one  
another. Second, some noise is accidental: interference from outside of the  
system's scope might stymie the operation of laws. These two kinds of noise  
underwrite scientists' capacity to establish laws . In systems with low  
regular-noise, scientists are able to isolate a system's variables and  
establish laws individually. In contexts of high regular-noise, laws are  
not isolatable and must be tested holistically. It will be difficult to  
project the results of tests from systems with high accident-noise. I will  
show how this framework sheds light on scientific methodology: in  
particular, why scientists go about studying systems as they do, and the  
role which models and simulations play in studies of complex systems.
When: Wed 14 May 2014 15:30 - 17:30 Eastern Time - Melbourne, Sydney
Where: Muniment Room, Quadrangle
Calendar: Seminars
Who:
     * Dalia Nassar- creator

Event details:  
https://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=N3BwbHRpb3ZybW5kcnExb241MDVkbDg0amcgMm1lN2M3ZnIzb21wbDRyaHZrcG1sYTUzNjhAZw

Invitation from Google Calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/

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