A short recent article in the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation by Venturini, Jensen, and Latour lays out a critique of the explanatory strategy associated with agent-based modeling of complex social phenomena (link). (Thanks to Mark Carrigan for the reference via Twitter; @mark_carrigan.) Tommaso Venturini is an expert on digital media networks at …
Quantum cognition?
Alexander Wendt proposes a radical idea in his Quantum Mind and Social Science: Unifying Physical and Social Ontology: that we should reconsider fundamentals of the social sciences to reflect emerging research on "quantum consciousness" and cognition. He describes his aim in these terms: In this book I explore the possibility that this [classical physics] foundational …
Von Neumann on the brain
image: representation of a mammalian brain neural network After World War II John von Neumann became interested in the central nervous system as a computing organ. Ironically, more was probably known about neuroanatomy than about advanced digital computing in the 1940s; that situation has reversed, of course. Now we know a great deal about calculating, …
John von Neumann and stochastic simulations
source: Monte Carlo method (Wikipedia) John von Neumann was one of the genuine mathematical geniuses of the twentieth century. A particularly interesting window onto von Neumann's scientific work is provided by George Dyson in his book, Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe. The book is as much an intellectual history of the mathematics and …
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Historical vs. sociological explanation
Think of the following matrix of explanatory possibilities of social and historical phenomena: Vertically the matrix divides between historical and sociological explanations, whereas horizontally it distinguishes general explanations and particular explanations. A traditional way of understanding the distinction between historical and sociological explanations was to maintain that sociological explanations provide generalizations, whereas historical explanations provide …
How to do cephalapod philosophy
How should researchers attempt to investigate non-human intelligence? The image above raises difficult questions. The octopus is manipulating (tenticlating?) the Rubik's cube. But there are a raft of questions that are difficult to resolve on the basis of simple inductive observation. And some of those questions are as much conceptual as they are empirical. Is …
Are emergence and microfoundations contraries?
image: micro-structure of a nanomaterial (link) Are there strong logical relationships among the ideas of emergence, microfoundations, generative dependency, and supervenience? It appears that there are. The diagram represents the social world as a laminated set of layers of entities, processes, powers, and laws. Entities at L2 are composed of or caused by some set …
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Do we still need microfoundations?
For quite a few years I have found the concept of microfoundations to be central for thinking about relationships across levels of social and individual activity. Succinctly, I have argued that, while it is perfectly legitimate to formulate theories and hypotheses about the properties and causal powers of higher-level social entities, it is necessary that …
SSHA 2015 themes
The 40th annual meeting of SSHA took place in Baltimore this weekend. The Social Science History Association is an especially rewarding academic meeting for scholars interested in the intersection between historical processes and social scientific research tools and explanations. The rationale for the organization is to provide a venue for bringing together the study of specific …
Eight years for Understanding Society
This week marks the end of the eighth year of Understanding Society. This year passed the 1000 mark — the blog is now up to 1,029 posts, or well over one million words. The blog continues to be a very good venue for me for developing and sharing ideas about the foundations of the social sciences …
Understanding Society 