The Explanatory Force of Network Models

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Explanatory Force of Network Models
Carl F. Craver, Preprint, 2017/01/11
Interesting paper that looks at network analyses of things (including brains) and asks about their explanatory power. A quick case in point (my own example): if we say a person knows P because she has network configuration C, does C explain why she knows P? Or does P explain why she has configuration C? This may seem trivial, but if we want to produce P in a person, the explanation is important, as it (maybe) tells us what causes what. More...