Alien Reasoning: Is a Major Change in Scientific Research Underway?
Are we entering a major new phase of modern science, one in which our standard, human modes of reasoning and understanding, including heuristics, have decreasing value? The new methods challenge human intelligibility. The digital revolution (deep connectionist machine learning, big data, cloud compu...
| Published in: | Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy Vol. 39; no. 4; pp. 901 - 915 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Sep2020
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=145301734&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 145301734 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01677411 NM2 jtl: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy issn: 01677411 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2020 vid: 39 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 145301734 10.1007/s11245-018-9557-1 ppf: 901 ppct: 14 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 903KB tig: atl: Alien Reasoning: Is a Major Change in Scientific Research Underway? aug: au: Nickles, Thomas affil: Department of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Nevada, Reno, 89557, Reno, NV, USA su: Artificial intelligence Machine learning Big data Cloud computing Heuristic sug: subj: Artificial intelligence Machine learning Big data Cloud computing Heuristic keyword: Alien intelligence Deep neural networks Expertise Heuristics Intelligibility Scientific progress Scientific realism Scientific reasoning The end of traditional science ab: Are we entering a major new phase of modern science, one in which our standard, human modes of reasoning and understanding, including heuristics, have decreasing value? The new methods challenge human intelligibility. The digital revolution (deep connectionist machine learning, big data, cloud computing, simulation, etc.) inspires such claims, but they are not new. During several historical periods, scientific progress has challenged traditional concepts of reasoning and rationality, intelligence and intelligibility, explanation and knowledge. The increasing intelligence of machine learning and networking is a deliberately sought, somewhat alien intelligence. As such, it challenges the traditional, heuristic foresight of expert researchers. Nonetheless, science remains human-centered in important ways—and yet many of our ordinary human epistemic activities are alien to ourselves. This fact has always been the source of "the discovery problem". It generalizes to the problem of understanding expert scientific practice. Ironically, scientific progress plunges us ever deeper into complexities beyond our grasp. But how is progress possible without traditional realism and the intelligibility realism requires? Pragmatic flexibility offers an answer. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy is a copyright of Springer, 2020. All Rights Reserved. item: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2020 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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