Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Simulation

Sherry Turtle, Simulation and Its Discontents (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009) reports on two ethnographic studies done by Turkle over twenty years investigating simulation and its implications in architecture, science, and engineering. She comments on how we have gone from the use of simulation in specific and strategic uses to seeing scientists, engineers, and others working almost full-time employing simulation. Turkle wonders if we can tell where simulation stops and actual science begins, and if we are losing some knowledge.

2 comments:

Martin Weiss said...

In some ways, I agree with Turkle. However, as we try to model increasingly complex systems that are too costly to prototype or measure (in real life), simulation becomes the only answer. But, in the interest of full disclosure, I use simulation to study "synthetic" spectrum markets, so I already drank the kool-aid ...

Richard J. Cox said...

I agree that stimulation is important, but only as long as we can keep in mind its limitations. Following the logic of her arguments, what we must be most aware of is the weakening of the experts in their expert knowledge.