log
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Fediverse reading list
I’ve become increasingly interested in the fediverse. Thinking in terms of protocols instead of privately owned platforms could give us ways to address some of the epistemic challenges associated with the new AI-structured information landscape. My plan is to write something on this later on, but I’ll start by gradually compiling a reading list on both technical and more conceptual thinking on the fediverse. I’ve been asking recommendations on social media on what to read.
The Fediverse is a new name for an old idea. From the beginning, the internet has been a network of networks, made possible by agreeing on shared protocols used for communication between machines (TCP/IP and so on). It’s only in the past two decades or so that we’ve become used to the social web being based on closed, proprietary platforms like Facebook or Twitter. The idea behind the Fediverse is to bring the social web back to a decentralized model: protocols like ActivityPub or Bluesky’s AT Protocol make inter-service sharing possible.
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Interview in Paatos (w/ Kristina Rolin and Jaakko Kuorikoski)
The philosophical magazine Paatos published an interview with three philosophers of science, Kristina Rolin, Jaakko Kuorikoski and me. The format is interesting - Jere Hallikainen, the author, added some links and references but otherwise the transcript follows the discussion very closely. Thanks Jere!
Turns out that surprisingly many philosophers started out as engineers. Or aspiring professional musicians!
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Visiting CMU in October-November 2024
In October-November 2024 I will be visiting the Center for Formal Epistemology and the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics at Carnegie Mellon University (hosted by Kevin Zollman). Really looking forward to this!
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On the idea of Bildung university
This week I gave a short presentation on the idea of Bildung university (‘sivistysyliopisto’ in Finnish). The notion of Bildung doesn’t quite translate to English but we have a word for it in Finnish, ‘sivistys’. Here Bildung university refers to the modern concept of research university from early 19th century, first embodied by the University of Berlin (founded in 1810).
It’s a lofty ideal and many of the ideas behind it come from German enlightenment and neohumanism: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher - and Humboldt. Although it seems like a politically implausible picture of autonomous universities and academic freedom, incompatible with current managerialist trends in higher education, the Bildung university model has been remarkably resilient, and successful. Despite various pressures and mutations along the way, it still lies at the heart of our best research universities, not only in continental Europe but also in the US, where the German model was exported during the 19th century.
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Interview - Science, uncertainty and trust
Amanda Häkkinen (TSV) interviewed me about my research for a series on open science. We talked about scientific problem solving, Heidegger, uncertainty and trust. And other things. Here, (in Finnish).
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AI as a mirror for human intelligence
Inspired by dinner debates around New Year’s (2023), Renne Pesonen and I wrote an essay (in Finnish) on large language models.
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Encyclopedia entry on the philosophy of science
Tomi Kokkonen and I wrote a (long!) entry on the philosophy of science for the Logos encyclopedia. It’s in Finnish, but who cares in this age of chatGPT.
Tweets here.
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Workshop materials - Agent-based models in social epistemology
Materials from the computational methods workshop at the 2022 Summer school of the Vienna doctoral school of philosophy, finally on github.
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On positionality statements (In Finnish)
I talked to a journalist from Helsingin Sanomat about positionality statements in science. My email response turned into a micro essay, so I’ll post it here.
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Interview on basic research (in Finnish)
I, among several other researchers, was recently interviewed by the magazine Tekniikan Maailma about the importance of basic research. Here
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reijulab
Ok ok I know it’s silly. One man research lab. But my personal research section is called Reijulab from now on. Why? Why not!
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Diversity-ability-trade-off (@Philosophy of Science)
We (myself and Jaakko Kuorikoski) have a new paper coming out in the Philosophy of Science (PSA2020/2021 proceedings). The paper examines the diversity-beats-ability theorem originally put forward by Lu Hong and Scott Page, 2004. Long story short, (1) we don’t think the original model provides reliable evidence of diversity beating ability in group problem solving, but (2) we have an improved version of the model that can tell us something of interest about the trade-off between diversity and ability!
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Institutional Epistemology
Here’s a link to a paper I wrote with Petri Ylikoski, where we outline the idea of institutional epistemology. (in Finnish!)
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New project - modeling the republic of science
I’m on research leave 2020-2025, working on my personal research project funded by the Academy of Finland. The project is called “Modeling the republic of science: Collaborative problem solving and collective rationality in scientific inquiry”
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Self-nudging in media
Our self-nudging article is getting some attention in media: Behavioral scientist, Yliopisto-lehti, The Decision Lab, NBC Today (9/2020)
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Mallit ja päätöksenteko @Alusta
Jaakko Kuorikoski and me wrote a small contribution to the debate on the use of evidence and computational models at the times of pandemic (in Finnish). In Alusta!
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Models as argumentative devices (@Synthese)
How can philosophers make use of (simulation) models? Together with Emrah Aydinonat and Petri Ylikoski (Synthese, forthcoming 2020), I argue that e.g. in social epistemology (of science), models should be understood as argumentative devices, and their epistemic status be evaluated accordingly.