I think one ought to think about reductionism slightly separately from the particulars of the universe we actually live in. I think of it as rather like the opposite of a curiosity-stopper—instead of assuming that everything is ontologically basic and doesn’t have underlying parts, we should assume that there may be underlying parts, and go look for them. Of course in our own universe that approach has been exceptionally fruitful.
The other part that works well is Occam’s razor—the simplest explanation of any data set is not only the most lightweight way of explaining the facts, it’s also the optimum way of expressing your state of ignorance as well. The simplest explanation is also the most compact way of explaining what you do know. That again arises purely out of the nature of information, and would be true in any universe, not just the noticeably elegant one we actually live in.
On the other hand, there may well be a final set of underlying parts that experiment actually points to, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it covers your experimental data.
I think one ought to think about reductionism slightly separately from the particulars of the universe we actually live in. I think of it as rather like the opposite of a curiosity-stopper—instead of assuming that everything is ontologically basic and doesn’t have underlying parts, we should assume that there may be underlying parts, and go look for them. Of course in our own universe that approach has been exceptionally fruitful.
The other part that works well is Occam’s razor—the simplest explanation of any data set is not only the most lightweight way of explaining the facts, it’s also the optimum way of expressing your state of ignorance as well. The simplest explanation is also the most compact way of explaining what you do know. That again arises purely out of the nature of information, and would be true in any universe, not just the noticeably elegant one we actually live in.
On the other hand, there may well be a final set of underlying parts that experiment actually points to, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it covers your experimental data.