Re: Scientific Reductionism

Video Cam Direct Upload

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• irreducible
• complexity
• science
• dawkins
• dennett
• reducion
• reducitionism

[waspull]

I have yet to understand the reply function. This was a reply to loneskeptic.

[waspull]

I completely disagree. The postulate is F=ma. From that (using calculus) the definition of work and energy are defined (classically). This isn't a "circle of logic," it is a mathematical derivation.

The mass energy thing is relativistic (and they're hardly synonymous!). Re: "Force is a mass..." Actually, a mass will accelerate under the influence of a force. In both cases, the "= " does not mean "is the same thing as."

[otonanoC]

Hahaha... the sudden leap to turn off the answering machine at 6:25 LOL!

[yamaha893]

linguistic conundrum.

[simonodell]

Analysing the component parts of a computer system will not tell you anything about why Internet Explorer is more widespread than its superior competing browsers.

Nothing in the chipsets or harddrives, memory banks, switches and relays will tell you anything about bill gates or why most computers in the world run code which is owned by him.

Certain facts cannot be revealed only by slicing up an object and inspecting its contents.

[psychoholicmike]

Our understanding of a water molecule's structure explains why water, unlike other liquids, EXPANDS when it freezes, rather than contracting.

Just one example of why you're a moron.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Science based in phenomenology implies that we have to account for intentionality (consciousness) and causality (matter) in a mutually non-reductive way (not reducing one to the other). Such a method is more open to discovering the way things really are than one which assumes from the beginning that all phenomena are ontologically reducible to the phenomena that compose them.

[0ThouArtThat0]

in phenomenology, in our lived experience, and so even while I'm not a reductionist I think the scientific method is best at discovering truth. Science and reductionism are not synonymous. Science can study both systems and parts, and learn more about either because of knowledge about the other.

Perhaps youre not a metaphysical, but a practical reductionist, in that you recognize the utility of the method, but that it leaves many questions unasked and other questions obscured (if so, we agree).

[0ThouArtThat0]

People say a lot of crazy things about quantum physics, but I bring them up in all seriousness as context for the following question: What is it, exactly, that a metaphysical reductionist believes everything is reducible to? "The laws of physics" perhaps...? But relativity and quantum theories form no unified system and offer no coherent cosmology. If science is grounded in physics, the discoveries of the 20th century have made the possibility of science doubtful. I think science is based...

[0ThouArtThat0]

What I was trying to articulate in the video is that the fluidity of water is not present in molecular or atomic components. The fact that H2O molecules of sufficient density become liquid is not explained by atomic theory (though it is of course allowed).

Is the liquidity of water real, or not? A metaphysical reductionist would say its not real. I prefer to say that the water I drink is as real as the atoms it is made of.