MODELIZATION BY COMPUTER (Limits of the)
Charles François (2004). MODELIZATION BY COMPUTER (Limits of the), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 2173.
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2173 ▶ |
| Object type | Discipline oriented, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
P. DENNING states such limits in the following way:
- “As part of our modeling efforts, we must come to understand the domains over which a given model is reliable, partly reliable, or unreliable. We must also understand the situations in which modelization can be useful as a way of grounding speculations about the future dynamics of systems.
- “Systems whose rules can evolve or change in unpredictable ways are unlikely to have a reliable predictive or speculative model.
- “We must be careful with the output of models, being constantly skeptical that these output are ”facts“ or are accurate descriptions of the world. In our technological age, it is easy to accept the claim that every phenomena can ultimately be modeled, given sufficient knowledge and computational resources. There is reason to doubt this faith.
- “If our mood makes us disinclined to accept complexity, it is easy to substitute the model for reality and to confuse our opinions with ”scientific facts“ supported by the model”(1990, p.498).
DENNING admits however that in limited domains, it is possible to create models of complex systems with human participants. But we do not know where the limits are.
This does not preclude using computers to gather and process information and make conditional predictions, whenever possible, “namely domains in which the rules are known in advance”.
- “In all cases, however, we must let the computer support the decision-maker, and not let the computer make the decisions” (Ibid.).