Confirmation via Analogue Simulation: A Bayesian Analysis

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Analogue simulation is a novel mode of scientific inference found increasingly within modern physics, and yet all but neglected in the philosophical literature. Experiments conducted upon a table-top ‘source system’ are taken to provide insight into features of an inaccessible ‘target system’, based upon a syntactic isomorphism between the relevant modelling frameworks. An important example is the use of acoustic ‘dumb hole’ systems to simulate gravitational black holes. In a recent paper it was argued that there exists circumstances in which confirmation via analogue simulation can obtain; in particular when the robustness of the isomorphism is established via universality arguments. The current paper supports these claims via an analysis in terms of Bayesian confirmation theory.