[FRIAM] description - explanation - metaphor - model - and reply

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Re: the use of a special term like "artifact" or "explanandum", I agree completely. "Model" is as good as any.

Re: the usefulness of obtuse models - I did give a description of how obtuse (indeed, totally opaque) models can be useful for science. It's possible you didn't receive that post. So, here is the archive: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/description-explanation-metaphor-model-tp7594030p7594294.html

It's arguable how large N must be for this to work well. But with progress in big data, generative AI, proof assistants, automatic programming, HoTT, etc., I think we're getting pretty close to shutting down any critics of the method. My own work requires only N=3: 1) the referents (i.e. validation data observed from it/them), 2) the reference model (usually an equation-based phenomena-only model), and 3) a finer-grained component-based model relying on both unit and systemic V&V. None of these are totally opaque, because we rely solely on open source stacks. (Though you could say none of us understands processors, cache, memory, transistors, etc.) But the *method* we're using prescribes that we *treat* them as opaque and rely solely on observations of each [†]. So, any validation/falsification we do can be reduced to data validation.

[†] I'm a broken record curmudgeon to my colleagues who keep treating verification data as if it were validation data. Pffft. FWIW, they also keep trying to use Matlab instead of Octave or R ... Grrr.

On 1/17/20 5:28 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> I mean... assuming I know what you mean by "obtuse"... which I'm not sure of... an "obtuse model" could be useful for many, many things... but the more obtuse it is, the less one can science with it... [...]
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☣ uǝlƃ