Talk:Scientific reductionism
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I removed this:
Sir John Eccles wrote, I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition. . . . we have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. --Evolution of the Brain, Creation of the Self, p. 241
Ed, please start your articles with a definition and aim for neutrality, like the rest of us. AxelBoldt, Monday, April 15, 2002
Thanks for the reminder, Axel. My next contribution will be on U.S. income taxes, and I assure you that it will be entirely neutral: it's on objective fact that EVERY American hates the IRS! Ed Poor
The question of whether all phenonomena are explainable in terms of science is a much less heated controversial. Although one can find scientists who believe that everything is explainable in natural terms and those who do not, the consensus seems to be that one should *attempt* to explain everything in natural terms and whether or not this is successful remains for experiment to resolve.
I question the wording here, though I think I agree with the intent. Perhaps "all physical phenomena"? Science doesn't address subjective terms like "goodness," or human-created systems like poetry... -- April
There's also something wrong about the last "anthropic principle" paragraph. First of all, there are several quite different anthropic principles. Second, even if we buy that there is a large number of possible physical laws, and the existence of conciousness limits the number of possible physical laws to a very small number, it is still true that the currently observed set physical laws caused conciousness, not the other way around. AxelBoldt, Saturday, April 20, 2002
- Some physicists argue that large structures undergo collective behaviors which are not most usefully described in terms of the behavior of their constituents (see for example emergence) and therefore there is no reason to label the lower level behaviors as more fundamental.
Can someone please name some physicists with these views, and give examples of phenomena they think are best explained at something besides the lowest level? The emergence page is not helpful on these counts. If nobody can, this sentence may need to be removed. --Ryguasu 00:45 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
- You might look at some back issues of Physics Today. The question of reductionism comes up, and it's actually a hot political topic between solid-state physicists and particle physicists. There aren't any specific names which I can associate with the beliefs, but the notion of emergence or hierarchical truth is very common among solid-state physicists - Roadrunner
- Philip Anderson, for one, was an influential proponent of this view.
Rlowry, I'm worried your new skyhooks/cranes addition confuses more than it enlightens. I think we should either include a full-blown explanation of his contrast between skyhooks and cranes or remove the reference to them. I admit the distinction is interesting, although I'm on the fence about whether or not it merits discussion in this particular article. I guess you feel it merits inclusion? --Ryguasu 05:45 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)
Ryguasu, I added the skyhooks / cranes sentence because I felt it gave a balance to the anti-reductionist quote from Eccles earlier in the article. I personally find Dennett's useage of the terms fairly straightforward and not requiring much in the way of explanation, but have added a few words to try to help clarify a little.
I'm not passionately attached to keeping it, though, if people feel that it gets in the way. --Rlowry