To your distinction between mereological and nomic reductionism, I would add a third kind of reductionism (“ontic reductionism” would be a good name) that goes beyond the mereological claim, to say that the only things that really exist are the entities of fundamental physics. In this view, quarks/strings/wavefunctions or whatever is posited in the ultimate theory are real, but high-level entities like trees and people are only “real”: they are certain combinations of fundamental entities that we signal out for a convenient description.
I’d say that trees and quarks are both real, without qualification, and that the concepts of trees and quarks are part of maps we make, and that relations like “reducible to”, more fundamental than”, etc, all speak about maps and not territory. So to say stuff like “only quarks really exist” is a map-territory confusion, and what we ought to say is that the map involving quarks is more comprehensive, accurate, universally applicable, etc, that the map involving trees.
(It bugged me to no end in the “Reductionism” chapter of HPMOR that Harry seems to make this mistake, confusing his timeless quantum mechanics map with reality itself.)
I would add a third kind of reductionism (“ontic reductionism” would be a good name) that goes beyond the mereological claim, to say that the only things that really exist are the entities of fundamental physics.
I call that view “metaphysical penis envy”. Less descriptive, but deliciously derisive.
It would be more accurate to say “Trees are special cases of waveforms” and “Bark is special cases of waveforms”, in that you can now describe the properties of trees (they have bark) without claiming that trees are more or less or equally as real as quarks.
I used “quarks” as a placeholder for whatever “fundamental” physical entities are posited as “truly real” by the reductionist. You seem to be using “waveforms” in a similar way, so I am confused as to whether we have a disagreement or not.
If the fundamental concept in physical theory is “waveform”, then I’d say: there is a map in which you can describe all reality as waveforms. There is a map, less comprehensive but more useful for many purposes, in which you can describe some aspects of reality as trees. I don’t like saying “Trees are special cases of waveforms” because it seems to place the reductionism at the ontic level (territory) instead of in the maps: it is a short distance from it to “only waveforms really exist”, which I regard as confused.
Upvoted; I like where (I think) this is going.
To your distinction between mereological and nomic reductionism, I would add a third kind of reductionism (“ontic reductionism” would be a good name) that goes beyond the mereological claim, to say that the only things that really exist are the entities of fundamental physics. In this view, quarks/strings/wavefunctions or whatever is posited in the ultimate theory are real, but high-level entities like trees and people are only “real”: they are certain combinations of fundamental entities that we signal out for a convenient description.
I’d say that trees and quarks are both real, without qualification, and that the concepts of trees and quarks are part of maps we make, and that relations like “reducible to”, more fundamental than”, etc, all speak about maps and not territory. So to say stuff like “only quarks really exist” is a map-territory confusion, and what we ought to say is that the map involving quarks is more comprehensive, accurate, universally applicable, etc, that the map involving trees.
(It bugged me to no end in the “Reductionism” chapter of HPMOR that Harry seems to make this mistake, confusing his timeless quantum mechanics map with reality itself.)
I call that view “metaphysical penis envy”. Less descriptive, but deliciously derisive.
It would be more accurate to say “Trees are special cases of waveforms” and “Bark is special cases of waveforms”, in that you can now describe the properties of trees (they have bark) without claiming that trees are more or less or equally as real as quarks.
I used “quarks” as a placeholder for whatever “fundamental” physical entities are posited as “truly real” by the reductionist. You seem to be using “waveforms” in a similar way, so I am confused as to whether we have a disagreement or not.
If the fundamental concept in physical theory is “waveform”, then I’d say: there is a map in which you can describe all reality as waveforms. There is a map, less comprehensive but more useful for many purposes, in which you can describe some aspects of reality as trees. I don’t like saying “Trees are special cases of waveforms” because it seems to place the reductionism at the ontic level (territory) instead of in the maps: it is a short distance from it to “only waveforms really exist”, which I regard as confused.