LAW DISCOVERY
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1862 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model |
H. SIMON states: “Law discovery means only find patterns in the data: whether the pattern will continue to hold for new data that are observed subsequently will be decided in the course of testing the law, not discovering it… The fact that a process can extract pattern from finite data sets says nothing about the predictive power of patterns so extracted for new observations. As we move from pattern detection to prediction, we move from the theory of discovery of processes to the theory of processes for testing laws” (1973, p.471).
G.S.theories strongly enhance our ability to discover processes of very general character. H. SIMON's difference between process discovery and laws testing parallels M. BUNGE's concepts about the need to specify through pertinent data any system that we seek to inquire by applying G.S.theories (see GST s: Epistemological evaluation).