Abstract
A number of research projects have recently taken up the challenge of formulating large-scale models of brain mechanisms at unprecedented levels of detail. These research enterprises have raised lively debates in the press and in the scientific and philosophical literature, some of them revolving around the question whether the incorporation of so many details in a theoretical model and in a computer simulations of it is really needed for the model to be explanatory. Is there a “right” level of detail? In this article I analyse the claim, made by two leading neuroscientists, according to which the content of the why-question addressed and the amount of computational resources available constrains the choice of the most appropriate level of detail in brain modelling. Based on the recent philosophical literature on (neuro)scientific explanation, I distinguish between two kinds of details, called here mechanistic decomposition and property details, and argue that the nature of the why-question provides only partial constraints to the choice of the most appropriate level of detail under the two interpretations of the term considered here.
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Notes
- 1.
Mechanisms are often said to be more or less “simple” (or “complex”) in the cognitive science and neuroscience literature depending on the number of their components and on the number and nature of the connections among the components. The adjectives “simple” and “complex” are also often used to qualify behaviours, a complex behaviour being one which is relatively difficult to predict without computational instruments. Providing a precise definition of these terms is out of the scope of this article: here they will be used in the common-sense interpretation sketched here, just for the purpose of introducing the subject of the paper. In the following pages they will be abandoned, and mechanisms will be said to be more or less detailed according to a more precisely defined notion of “level of detail”.
- 2.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/devices/blue-brain-project-leader-angry-about-cat-brain (last visited on September 14, 2016).
- 3.
Several accounts of the formal semantics of why-questions can be found in the philosophical literature, most notably in (Bromberger 1966; Van Fraassen 1980; Hintikka and Halonen 1995). In what follows, I assume that the distinction between same-level and inter-level questions made here is compatible with all these accounts. Examples of why-questions are provided below in the text.
- 4.
This argument is to be refined based on a formal account of the notion of “mechanistic decomposition level”, which is out of the scope of this paper. Note that why-questions can be classified as same-level or inter-level only with respect to a particular mechanistic decomposition hierarchy. No why-question is “intrinsically” same-level or inter-level.
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Datteri, E. (2019). Large-Scale Simulations of the Brain: Is There a “Right” Level of Detail?. In: Berkich, D., d'Alfonso, M. (eds) On the Cognitive, Ethical, and Scientific Dimensions of Artificial Intelligence. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 134. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01800-9_11
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