Talk:Reductionism

This is just a stub, importing material formerly in Scientific MethodGareth Leng 09:52, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Proposal for a wider scope for this article: anyone interested?

At the moment Reductionism is focused upon the idea of reductionism as an 'approach' to science, and particularly physics and chemistry. This view is too restrictive and doesn't deal with the really wide spectrum of this concept. The article in WP quotes John Polkinghorne: the belief "that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts." A related view is that "for any [focal] level of phenomena there is a lower level that explains in a causal way the focal level." These seem to me a better starting point. Is anyone interested in redrafting this article? John R. Brews 18:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Part of this revision could consider an antireductionist view that is exploited by crackpots, like that of Stuart Kaufman, who leans heavily upon emergence and wishes to reopen the door to a Creator. John R. Brews 18:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the most interesting aspects of reduction show up in biology with the struggle to determine just what are the organizing principles: gene interaction, natural selection and a host of other nebulous issues appear to compete for dominance. There is an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia: Brigandt & Love. John R. Brews 19:02, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

• "for any [focal] level of phenomena there is a lower level that explains in a causal way the focal level." Sounds like what you might call infinite reductionism: turtles all the way down. Contrast reduction to, say, particle physics. Peter Jackson 14:23, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Peter: So gald you engaged here.

Is there a contrast? It seems that high-energy physics is always finding another layer of the onion.

I'd guess the 'hot' issue here is that explanations based upon the lowest available level of explanation are so complex as to be unhelpful. So, for example, determining how genes behave cannot be attempted using the Standard model. It may be reassuring psychologically that chemistry can "in principle" be traced back to quantum mechanics, but in actual fact you can't even explain the He atom using quantum mechanics without introducing approximations based upon intuitions about the system behavior. So I am asking myself, what is the point of "knowing" everything is reducible to string theory when that tidbit of information has absolutely no practical implications (even if you have a hadron collider in the back yard)? Maybe its only value is in calming the nerves?

Maybe this article can go into such matters? John R. Brews 15:19, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

There's a difference between factual discovery of lower levels and a belief that there will always be lower levels.

Last I heard, string theory was still so complicated that it didn't actually explain anything at all, let alone high-level stuff.

Philosophically, there are questions about whether something that can't actually be found in pracice, such as such explanations, "really" exist. This comes up in quantum theory, where the standard interpretation seems to abandon the concept of reality altogether.

These are just some thoughts of my own. Whether I'll feel like doing the research to find out what academics have said is another matter. Peter Jackson 08:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Peter: Yes, digging up sources is another issue. At this point I am just exploring the subject, so your thoughts are useful. You bring up the (to me, anyway) very interesting issue "about whether something that can't actually be found in pracice, such as such explanations, "really" exist."

As I understand the matter (and am happy to be corrected) this issue is actually very deep. So, for example, one can ask whether an 'electron' really exists. It is a pretty common player in physics and chemistry. I think one answer to this is that within some experimental or laboratory context, the reality of an electron relates to the outcome of certain observations. Within that narrow context the 'electron' exists inasmuch as it enters calculations and how apparatus is arranged and results are interpreted. Does it 'exist' in a wider context as a result of these activities? I'd guess not. If you want to expand the meaning of electron to a wider arena, you have to adopt a wider context. If the results in some particular context disagree with the idea of an electron, that makes a hole in our experience where electrons don't fit, but they may still work elsewhere. Or, maybe the electron becomes something different, perhaps with wave properties as well as a charge? Another example is thermodynamics, which works in a particular area of experience, but doesn't work for systems of small numbers of particles. On the other hand, statistical mechanics or maybe kinetics works fine for small numbers, but is hopelessly overcomplicated for some of the calculation for which thermodynamics is just great.

Does any of this bear upon the reality of things that cannot 'actually' be found. I'd say so. What we mean by 'finding' an electron is that certain observations (maybe blips on a scope, maybe discrete jumps in motion of charged airborne droplets, maybe an interference pattern on a photographic plate) correlate with the predictions of a theory involving electrons. Without the theory, the observations mean little. The electron is 'observed' only within a theoretical context, that in some cases involves a wavefunction.

Hope I have not drowned your interest at this point. You can see where I am going. Has it a place as a topic in this article? John R. Brews 18:35, 4 September 2013 (UTC)