Representar e intervenir con tecnomundos virtuales: simulaciones, ficciones y controversias

  1. José Luis Granados Mateo
  2. Javier Echeverría Ezponda
Journal:
Argumentos de razón técnica: Revista española de ciencia, tecnología y sociedad, y filosofía de la tecnología

ISSN: 1139-3327

Year of publication: 2019

Issue: 22

Pages: 96-119

Type: Article

DOI: 10.12795/ARGUMENTOS/2019.I22.04 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Argumentos de razón técnica: Revista española de ciencia, tecnología y sociedad, y filosofía de la tecnología

Abstract

Computer simulations are currently the main virtual testing field within several scientific disciplines. It's a distinctive practice with respect to the Representing and Intervening proposed by Hacking in 1983. For, a computer simulation isn't solely a calculation tool; it also acts as a research methodology in itself. Through them, virtual technoworlds and their objects of study can be recreated—thereby granting access to experimentally inaccessible natural systems (i.e., climate change or astrophysical phenomena). This article analyzes the tenability of considering these simulations as objects of dispute, superimposed on the debate of scientific realism. To this end, we start with the characterization of Hacking by adopting a praxeological perspective, and then focusing on simulations with causal explanatory potential. Following this, the applicability of the arguments of intervention, as well as the multiple correspondence of representations, are evaluated. From this data, the article concludes with an analysis of the analogies and differences between the practice of observing by means of a microscope and simulating by means of computational technology.

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