15 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
The World is a Black Box
The world with its quarks and chromosomes, its distant lands and spiral nebulae, is like a vast computer in a black box, forever sealed except for its input and output registers. These we directly observe, and in the light of them we speculate on the structure of the machine, the universe. Thus it is that we think up the quarks and chromosomes, the distant lands and the nebulae; they would account for the observable data. When an observation turns out unexpectedly, we may try modifying our th...Folksonomies: scientific method empiricism
Folksonomies: scientific method empiricism
We don't know how it works, we only see the inputs and outputs and must extrapolate hypotheses from what we see.
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Working with a Black Box Problem and Star Trek
The job of computer scientists, of course, is to design the programs that let electronic computers accomplish those impressive feats of thinking and knowing. The computer scientists have to figure out how to make programs that get to the right kind of output from the right kind of input. But our job as cognitive psychologists is rather different and even harder. We are more like archaeologists than engineers. Actually, it's a familiar Star Trek story. We have landed on a planet that already...When we are exploring a black box, we are like the archaeologists in Star Trek.