Stuart Kauffman on Beyond Reductionism

Stuart Kauffman discusses his book Beyond Reductionism

• Category

  People & Blogs

[ram dass]

nobody supposed ever

[Rdchannels]

Reductionism is antiquated method of the old or simple science which lead to scientism. Useful hundreds of years ago for base data compilation, but should only be taught in historical sciences.

[donswahiba]

There are believers that are not necessarily Christian or Islamic fundamentalists... It requires highly educated intellectuals from 1,000s of disciplines to discern but a fraction of the world; how can such an amount of high precision events by uncountable particles that again and again result in rational and emotionally intelligent life, beauty, traits such as curiosity, loyalty, empathy as well as the whole spectrum of experience through perception, sensation be the result of chance?

[8e500]

Reductionism has been an extremely effective approach for learning a lot about the world around us. I believe that several limitations of reductionism have been revealed through Quantum Mechanics, thus demonstrating it to be inapplicable to the fundamental nature of the universe. This inapplicability results from the “non-separability” property that appears to emerge from within Quantum mechanical theory.

[odinata]

Maybe that's because you can't seem to understand what the term "natural" means.

You are afraid of the term "emergence" becuase you are determined to assert that "god dunnit" is the excuse for an explanation that you are going to cling to.

Come hell or high water.

[circusOFprecision]

While I disagree with Kauffman's idea that God and a naturally evolving universe are somehow mutually exclusive, I do believe he adds insight and sheds light on important concepts that materialists are butchering such as what life is, what the term emergence means, and so on.

[RabinoBoricuaVirtual]

There’s a self-evident truth: the law of action & reaction: If I sow wheat, I will end up reaping wheat; if I push a solid wall with 200 lbs force, the wall will push me back with 200 lbs force; if I'm friendly to a dog, the dog will end up being friendly to me. Thus, Nature teaches me religion:”If I do good, I’ll end up reaping the same goodness; but if I do evil, I’ll get back that same evil”. “To do what’s good” is true no-nonsense spirituality. The rest is just atheist and/or religious hype.

[justgivemethetruth]

This just merely marketing. Starting out with a comment that secular humanists are atheists or agnostics ... to me, atheism and everything else is a subset of agnosticism because really no one knows the best big picture way to parse reality, so all of it is just a way to frame one's mindset in a way that they have faith works best.

[Putcha Narasimham]

This is very profound and unifying....holistic. It must have evolved since June 03, 2008 and become more refined and acceptable. Best wishes Stuart Kauffman. Look forward to hearing more from you.

[openaniconica]

Wonderful and valuable that he is, Is Kauffman saying anything radically new to the contemporary West? second third generation Western dharmics that dont subtly seek salvatiion outside of themselves might support the view that 'agency is god enough for me.' I certainly would.