Desiderata for an Account of Representation that Accommodates Analogue Simulation

How should philosophers account for the way scientists gain insight into one physical system (their ‘target’) by manipulating and measuring another physical system (their ‘source’)? What and how are we learning about the physics of one system when we represent it using a very different system, one which has a radically distinct material constitution?

Somehow, science can flush-out knowledge by barking up the wrong tree.

A highly successful methodology in modern physics research, Analogue Simulation, gives empirical access to a wide range of otherwise hard-to-reach phenomena. From black holes to magnetic monopoles, smart materials to the trembling motion of elementary particles at relativistic speeds, there are curious ways we can get-at phenomena indirectly, via physical analogues.

Scientists have long used their imagination to Reason by Analogy, drawing fruitful connections that turn one set of formal structures into an heuristic toolkit to explore a different set of formal structures. By contrast, Analogue Simulation is grounded in concrete, lab-based systems that can be precisely manipulated to generate source-phenomena that behave ‘as-if’ they were target-phenomena.

Philosophers often build Accounts of Scientific Representation that draw-on concepts appropriated from the worlds of art and aesthetics. These typically celebrate the freedom we have - as intentional agents - to represent an X by any Y we choose, heedless as to whether or not Y has the necessary properties and the representational capacity to perform that role. Such approaches belittle the material process and practices of both science and art.

In my doctoral thesis I argue that the scientific practice of Analogue Simulation presents a number of significant challenges to philosophers’ current best accounts of scientific representation. By paying closer attention to the way physical analogues are now being exploited in the lab, I identify clear desiderata for an account of representation that can fully accommodate Analogue Simulation.

The thesis re-scores the benchmarks by which philosophers judge whether their accounts of representation are fit for 21st Century Science. It presents cases for five desiderata: a wishlist of features which our best accounts of representation should have if they are to be fit for contemporary purposes and practices of analogue simulation.