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Paul Grobstein's picture

randomness, falsifiability, and scale dependent science/inquiry?

Rich conversation in the session this morning, and in the halls afterward.  My own take on where we started/got to is provided in the summary above.  That is, of course, my particular idiosyncratic picture, filtered through my own perspectives/aspirations.  Delighted to have here alternate/supplementary/conflicting pictures of what others saw.
Glad we got to a shared sense (at least I think we did) that it is worth looking into some alternative ways to conceive science/inquiry, ways that are less dependent on definitive "falsifiability" and more open to the existence multiple viable alternative possibilities paths to explore, including one that presume significant indeterminacy at the outset.  Looking forward to seeing where we go with that, whether or not we get to randomness as "persistent and generative condition, one that allows us a creative role in shaping a future that will in turn always have new things into which to inquire" (Alternative perspectives on randomness and its significance).
Along these lines, Mike, Wil, and I had a post-session bull session worth recording some thoughts from.  Will trust Mike/Wil to correct any distorted picture of that presented here.  The issues posed had to do with local versus more expansive sets of questions, when and why one does or doesn't think about changing methodologies, and the relations between phenomena at different levels of organization.  On the one hand (I won't say which hand) was the notion that one ought to stay with methodologies that have local success and presume that understandings at local scales will sum up to reasonable understandings at larger scales and higher levels of organization.  On the other hand was the idea that local successes won't sum linearly, that methodologies that work locally shouldn't be assumed to work either at larger scales or higher levels of organization, that they work precisely because they have been developed to deal with the particular characteristics of phenomena at particular scales/levels of organization.  If there are significant non-linearities, perhaps involving some degree of randomness, in moving to different scales/levels of organization, then one will need at those different methodologies.  One guess (mine) is that that is indeed the case, that there are often "phase transitions" intervening.  Hence perhaps a need to accept indeterminacy and non-falsifiability more at some levels of organization/scales than at others?  
All this is interesting reminiscent of a discussion of Against Interpretation, Against Method?  Perhaps there is a continuing need to match methods of inquiry to the materials at hand?  With the only constancy being skepticism, responsiveness to the challenges set by the materials one is working with, and an interest in "shared subjectivity"? 

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