Well, if the definition said that “reductionists disagree that 2 & 2 make 5” I wouldn’t disagree with that either. What worries me is the apparent refusal to engage with the rational critics of reductionism. But I am mainly thinking of critics in fields other than physics—politics “there is no such thing as society”, Skinner’s psychology, “there are no thoughts, only stimuli and responses”, not to mention developmental biology, weather forecasting & even mechanical engineering analysis, none of which actually get near “the territory” of quarks and leptons. So I am beginning to suspect that reductionism is used in a special sense by EY, more or less as a synonym for monism. And it’s true, I wouldn’t want to defend “substance dualists”.
As for the Naval Gunner, the point is that he would be right in other fields than fundamental physics. In weather forecasting long term forecasts using coarser models are actually more accurate than those using fine meshes, because of the chaotic behaviour at smaller scales. So I would say the gunner was just misinformed! The fact that one of the two theories happens to be one of the very few theories that are exact as far as we currently know, and the other an approximation, makes it a special case - though possibly one of special relevance if monism/dualism is really the issue in question.
Thanks for pointing to the more recent EY post, which I look forward to reading. No time tonight.
What worries me is the apparent refusal to engage with the rational critics of reductionism. But I am mainly thinking of critics in fields other than physics—politics “there is no such thing as society”, Skinner’s psychology, “there are no thoughts, only stimuli and responses”, not to mention developmental biology, weather forecasting & even mechanical engineering analysis, none of which actually get near “the territory” of quarks and leptons. So I am beginning to suspect that reductionism is used in a special sense by EY, more or less as a synonym for monism. And it’s true, I wouldn’t want to defend “substance dualists”.
What you are calling reductionism here is the refusal to countenance some higher-level properties. But, in fact, most reductionists do countenance most h-l properties. What makes them reductionists (which of course is not brought out by the broken LW wiki definition) is that they think all the h-l properties they
countenance can be explained at a lower level. BTW, people who don’t countenance any h-l properties, states, or entities are called mereological nihiists,
not reductionists.
As for the Naval Gunner, the point is that he would be right in other fields than fundamental physics. In weather forecasting long term forecasts using coarser models are actually more accurate than those using fine meshes, because of the chaotic behaviour at smaller scales.
I don’t quite agree here. It’s true that chaotic interactions and floating point multiplication errors mean that long-running fine-grained maps are less accurate than long-running coarse-grained maps, but it seems cleaner to consider that a fact about computer science, not meteorology.
Thanks for pointing to the more recent EY post, which I look forward to reading. No time tonight.
I would actually recommend Hands vs. Fingers first if you haven’t read it yet. It’s shorter and may be more directly relevant to your interests.
Re Hands vs. Fingers. What worries me about this is the lack of any attention to the different contexts/purposes of different statements about hands & fingers. I have added a comment to the original post to amplify this.
it seems cleaner to consider that a fact about computer science, not meteorology.
I’d call it a fact about any system whose trajectories diverge at a smaller scale and converge at a larger scale (roughly), but that’s a radical view that needs a new discussion some time.
I think I can see a useful way of taking the reductionism question further, but will do more reading first...
Well, if the definition said that “reductionists disagree that 2 & 2 make 5” I wouldn’t disagree with that either. What worries me is the apparent refusal to engage with the rational critics of reductionism. But I am mainly thinking of critics in fields other than physics—politics “there is no such thing as society”, Skinner’s psychology, “there are no thoughts, only stimuli and responses”, not to mention developmental biology, weather forecasting & even mechanical engineering analysis, none of which actually get near “the territory” of quarks and leptons. So I am beginning to suspect that reductionism is used in a special sense by EY, more or less as a synonym for monism. And it’s true, I wouldn’t want to defend “substance dualists”.
As for the Naval Gunner, the point is that he would be right in other fields than fundamental physics. In weather forecasting long term forecasts using coarser models are actually more accurate than those using fine meshes, because of the chaotic behaviour at smaller scales. So I would say the gunner was just misinformed! The fact that one of the two theories happens to be one of the very few theories that are exact as far as we currently know, and the other an approximation, makes it a special case - though possibly one of special relevance if monism/dualism is really the issue in question.
Thanks for pointing to the more recent EY post, which I look forward to reading. No time tonight.
What you are calling reductionism here is the refusal to countenance some higher-level properties. But, in fact, most reductionists do countenance most h-l properties. What makes them reductionists (which of course is not brought out by the broken LW wiki definition) is that they think all the h-l properties they countenance can be explained at a lower level. BTW, people who don’t countenance any h-l properties, states, or entities are called mereological nihiists, not reductionists.
I don’t quite agree here. It’s true that chaotic interactions and floating point multiplication errors mean that long-running fine-grained maps are less accurate than long-running coarse-grained maps, but it seems cleaner to consider that a fact about computer science, not meteorology.
I would actually recommend Hands vs. Fingers first if you haven’t read it yet. It’s shorter and may be more directly relevant to your interests.
Re Hands vs. Fingers. What worries me about this is the lack of any attention to the different contexts/purposes of different statements about hands & fingers. I have added a comment to the original post to amplify this.
Thanks again.
I’d call it a fact about any system whose trajectories diverge at a smaller scale and converge at a larger scale (roughly), but that’s a radical view that needs a new discussion some time.
I think I can see a useful way of taking the reductionism question further, but will do more reading first...
I mentioned back in April that the point about chaos and computer science needed a proper discussion. It is here.
I also mentioned another way of taking the reductionism question further. I was referring to this.