CFP: Effective Theories, Mixed Scale Modeling, and Emergence

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Calling for abstracts on multiscale models, effective theories, and emergence with a main focus on relations between theories and models at different scales. 

Submission Guidelines:

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 20 May 2015. Please submit an extended abstract (of approximately 1000 words) and a 1-2 page CV using Easy Chair.

Acceptances will be notified in June 2015. Updates will be posted on the conference webpage on the Center for Philosophy of Science website.

This is a two and a half day event to be held October 2-4, 2015 at the University of Pittsburgh. Hotel accommodations will be provided for up to three nights for accepted speakers.

The Conference

This will be an open call conference bringing together philosophers interested in modeling, effective theories, emergence and reduction with scientists and applied mathematicians working on analytic and computational multiscale techniques.

How can data be extracted from observations of systems at a variety of spatial and temporal scales and then be combined to understand phenomena without any attempt to reduce the theories or models appropriate at some scale to those appropriate at another? Many such "mixed-level" explanations are, it seems, essential to successful scientific investigation. Multiscale modeling is playing an increasing role in many areas of science, including climate science, materials science, and developmental biology. This work suggests that interesting methods have by and large been overlooked by philosophers who primarily treat modeling (and intertheory relations) as restricted to two (spatial) scales---the "macroscopic" and the "microscopic." One aim of the conference is to consider the implication of recent work on the nature of multiscale modeling for our understanding of material behaviors, effective theories, and the kind of autonomy that often accompanies claims about emergence.