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Representations of complexity: How nature appears in our theories

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Abstract

In science we study processes in the material world. The way these processes operate can be discovered by conducting experiments that activate them, and findings from such experiments can lead to functional complexity theories of how the material processes work. The results of a good functional theory will agree with experimental measurements, but the theory may not incorporate in its algorithmic workings a representation of the material processes themselves. Nevertheless, the algorithmic operation of a good functional theory may be said to make contact with material reality by incorporating the emergent computations the material processes carry out. These points are illustrated in the experimental analysis of behavior by considering an evolutionary theory of behavior dynamics, the algorithmic operation of which does not correspond to material features of the physical world, but the functional output of which agrees quantitatively and qualitatively with findings from a large body of research with live organisms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 30322, USA

    J. J. McDowell

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Correspondence to J. J. McDowell.

Additional information

I thank Jack Marr for pointing out James Clerk Maxwell’s reliance on physical analogy in the development of his theory of electromagnetism, and for the cartoon metaphor for artificial neural networks. I also thank him for his question at the conference about what it means to say that the brain carries out computations, a question that I attempt to answer in this article. Nick Calvin and Andrei Popa made many helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, for which I am grateful.

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McDowell, J.J. Representations of complexity: How nature appears in our theories. BEHAV ANALYST 36, 345–359 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392319

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