Subproject P5

PI: Prof. Dr. Marcel Weber, Department of Philosophy, Université de Genève

Ph.D. Student: Michal Hladky, M.A., Department of Philosophy, Université de Genève

This project will investigate the role of simulations as a form of counterfactual reasoning in the contemporary neurosciences. It will focus in particular on the use of computer simulations in order to produce models of brain architecture and function, not so much in order to simulate cognitive processes as such (“weak” rather than “strong” Artificial Intelligence according to a distinction proposed by Searle in 1980). In classical computational neuroscience, action potentials are modeled by computing numerical solutions to mathematical equations such as the Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) equations, which do not admit of analytical solutions. This approach mirrors the traditional use of computer simulations in other areas of science, e.g., physics, climate science or economics. However, in contemporary neuroscience there is also a bewildering variety of other simulation techniques that may or may not resemble the traditional approach. These techniques have rarely been examined from a philosophy of science point of view.

This project will closely investigate the simulation practices of contemporary neuroscience. A first goal will be to provide a survey of different uses of simulation in the contemporary neurosciences. In a second stage, it will treat these simulations as providing scientists with specific counterfactual conditionals the antecedents of which are modeling assumptions and the consequents describe some possible neurological state, structure or process. This counterfactual analysis will be used in a third stage to provide a more integrative view of the different scientific activities of simulation, modeling, experimentation and thought experiments. The relationship between these different scientific techniques has been controversially discussed in the philosophical literature. Viewing them all as involving some kind of counterfactuality will enable us to better understand the commonalities as well as differences with respect to their epistemic role.

PI: Prof. Dr. Marcel Weber, Department of Philosophy, Université de Genève

Ph.D. Students: Maximilian Huber, M.Litt; Guillaume Schlaepfer, M.A.

Counterfactual thinking plays an important role in the biological sciences and manifests itself in various forms and contexts. First, like other sciences, biology produces causal statements that, according to received accounts of causation, imply counterfactual conditionals (and perhaps are implied by such conditionals, although this is more controversial). Second, biological science establishes causal regularities that may vary with respect to their stability or invariance. Such differences, too, can be analyzed in terms of certain patterns of counterfactual dependence (Woodward 2003). Third, there exist general claims about the biological claim that are counterfactual in nature. An example is Stephen Jay Gould’s claim that evolution is like a tape that would play a different tune every time it is replayed (Gould 1989). Fourth, biological explanation often refer to possible organisms in addition to actual organisms. For example, in functional explanations or design explanations, actual organisms are compared to possible but non-actual organisms that are identical to the actual ones in all respects but the trait to be explained functionally or in terms of design (Wouters 2003; Knell and Weber 2009, section 2.5.2). Some such explanations also contain constraints arising fron the living state (Wouters 2007). Fifth, counterfactual claims are not only made about organisms but about biology itself. An example are claims of the historical contingency of the development of science (Radick 2006; Weber 2005, Ch. 6). In other words, biologists made have accepted other theories than they actually did had the historical conditions been different.

In the research group, biology is taken to be a representative for the natural sciences that takes an intermediate between fundamental physics and the humanities (P4, P5). Based on a theory of biological modality, we want to establish a framework for analyzing and reconstructing various instances of counterfactual thinking in biology.

To date, there have hardly been any attempts of giving a systematic account of the truth conditions as well as the epistemic warrants for claims about biological modalities (i.e, biological possibility and necessity). No doubt, the vast existing literature on biological laws and causal regularities (e.g., Beatty 1995; Cooper 1996; Waters 1998, 2007; Weber 1999; Mitchell 2000; Woodward 2010) is relevant to this topic. Just as physical modalities can be analyzed in terms of possible worlds in which certain laws obtain, we might attempt to understand biological modalities in terms of biological laws. However, in contrast to physics, it is often not clear which laws or regularities might be relevant for the task. This is precisely why biological modalities merit philosophical scrutiny in their own right. It is possible that biological modalities are more fundamental than any biological laws or causal regularities. An indication of this fact is that current accounts of biological regularities deploy counterfactual conditionals (P1, P2) the truth- or assertability conditions of which are unknown. Such conditionals express modalities that we do not presently understand with respect to their ontological grounds nor what warrants such claims epistemically. This project aims to remedy this unsatisfactory state of affairs. It contains two parts, where Part 1 deals with ontological and part 2 with epistemological questions.

Part 1: Biological Possibility and Necessity

Modal claims, i.e., claims about what is and what is not possible or necessary are frequently encountered in biology, just as in other sciences. However, some claims do not fit the standard distinctions, for example, the distinction between logical and physical possibility. Some state of affairs are said to be biologically impossible without implying physical impossibility (while the converse is always thought to be true: physical impossibility entails biological impossibility). For example, a complex organism that shows no senescence (aging) is thought to be physically possible but biologically impossible (Knell and Weber 2009, Ch. 2). Other examples of specifically biological modal claims are found in evolutionary developmental biology (“evo-devo”), where the notion of developmental contraint is frequently encountered (Amundsen 2005). Developmental constraints are trait combinations that are not changeable through evolution, but the reason is not that such forms would be physically impossible. The notion of developmental constraint contains only biological impossibility, not physical impossibility.

This part of the project will analyze various forms of modal claims in biology and examine different attempts of stating the truth (or assertability) conditions for those counterfactual conditionals (P1, P2) that are normally used to express such modal facts.

Part 2: Thought Experiments in Biology

In contrast to real experiments (Weber 2005), biological thought experiments have not received much attention. To date, most discussion centered around Dennett’s (1994) suggestions, according to which the approach known as Artificial Life (AL) is best viewed in terms of thought experiments (Swan 2009). Although AL is not taken very seriously in general, there might be areas within biology that may also be viewed in such terms, for example, so called in silico-experiments, which play an increasingly important role in the field of systems biology. In addition, there are historical examples of biological thought experiments, for example, R.A. Fisher’s three sex-reproduction (Fisher 1930). Just as in other areas where thought experiments are used (P3, P6), the question is of there is some kind of a priori-knowledge in science or of thought experiments play some other role that conforms with an empiricist philosophy of science (Sorensen 1992; Brown 2004; Norton 2004).

Like projects P3, P4 and P6, this part of the project examines how thought experiments can function as epistemic tools for the establishment of modal claims (see Part 1). It is also planned to examine the considerable literature on modeling in general philosophy of science (e.g., Morrison 1999).