Prosthetic Models

Abstract

What are the relative epistemic merits of building prosthetic models versus building nonprosthetic models and simulations? I argue that prosthetic models provide a sufficient test of affordance validity, that is, of whether the target system affords mechanisms that can be commandeered by a prosthesis. In other respects, prosthetic models are epistemically on par with nonprosthetic models. I focus on prosthetics in neuroscience, but the results are general. The goal of understanding how brain mechanisms work under ecologically and physiologically relevant conditions is narrow compared to the search for maker's knowledge about how the brain can be made to work for us.