Forums → WEPR → Reductionism

I would contend that there are some fundamental flaws with reductionism, especially as pertaining to the higher functions of animals. I find that, especially in the 'higher' life forms, the sum is often greater than the whole of it's parts.

Human consciousness, for example, cannot be explained by any atomic principle, and indeed these often don't seem to apply on such a scale. We see the movement and interaction of subatomic particles and find it extremely difficult, if even possible at all, to draw similarities with the complex organisms which they make up.

I have a feeling this one may spark further debate, so I may swing by and go into greater detail later.

@MRWalker82

A reductionist would argue that if you cannot explain human consciousness by looking at the atomic scale, there must be some factor or property that separates humans from other matter.

Say you were to make a person less and less "humanlike" and more and more simple. Would they reach a point at which they can be explained through the motion of subatomic particles? What gives a human these particular properties, and does not apply to the graphite in a pencil, choosing a random example?

Our bodies are controlled by physics and chemistry. By arguing against reductionism, is one not saying that our bodies defy these?

Say you were to "create" an artificial human brain and "copy" it, so you take an existing, working brain, and you copy each molecule systematically. At which point will it develop this factor described above.

I think it depends on when one feels you have reduced something to the simplest form. For example, we can explain consciousness through chemistry, however not through quantum mechanics, yet the chemicals we are dealing with can be further broken down to, yet not fully explained by, quantum theory.

Just now noticed this here, very cool topic.

Unfortunately, for a proper philosophical discussion, I don't think your account of reductionism is going to cut it. It's no fault of your own - it's just that philosophers have been so particular about developing clear and consistent definitions that there are now a huge number of different kinds of reductionist claims.

I was hoping to use your OP to narrow down the kind of reductionism you want to talk about, but your commitments are compatible with a lot of different reductionist accounts. It might be easier for us to discuss which reductionist commitments we find most palatable and then assess our position from there. But this would be challenging and would involve some pretty heavy philosophy - I dunno if anyone is really interested in doing all that.

I will say this, though. Reductionists about mental states or consciousness have an extremely tough task before them. They must find a way to get from talk about phenomenal experience to talk about physics. But there are some very convincing arguments that this task is a) not possible, and b) should be attempted at the risk of creating a physical language (or system of axioms) that is too large in scope and internally inconsistent.
But these worries hold more strongly for reductionist accounts that deny emergent phenomena, like what we call awareness. I think it may be better to run with a version of reductionism that is compatible with emergent phenomena.

I agree Moegreche. I admit I have only a cursory introduction to reductionist philosophy, and after my posts here I decided to do a bit more research on the topic in order to better understand it. I find that some sections of reductionism do seem to hold great merit, however I agree that tackling the subject as a whole seems rather overwhelming, and far beyond my own understanding of, or comfort with, the field of philosophy.

Perhaps if you would be willing to redirect the subject to a smaller and more manageable discussion on any of the types of reductionist philosophy we could get an interesting conversation going.

I had a lengthy post written out about what type of reductionism we would be discussing, but unfortunately, when I clicked "Submit," I received a message saying I wasn't logged in, and lost all the information I had written.

@Moegreche
Reductionism does not necessarily imply rejection of the idea of emergent phenomena. For example, the interactions between atoms are emergent phenomena, like the arrangement of the cell membrane, since they are not present in the atoms themselves. However, this is not at odds with reductionism, because the forces at work are also part of the system itself.

About a particular facet of reductionism...

How about epistemological, or theoretical, reductionism. This was the type of reductionism which had the most consistent definition. From Wikipedia:

"Theoretical reduction is the process by which one theory absorbs another. For example, both Kepler's laws of the motion of the planets and Galileoâs theories of motion worked out for terrestrial objects are reducible to Newtonian theories of mechanics, because all the explanatory power of the former are contained within the latter. Furthermore, the reduction is considered to be beneficial because Newtonian mechanics is a more general theoryâ"that is, it explains more events than Galileo's or Kepler's. Theoretical reduction, therefore, is the reduction of one explanation or theory to anotherâ"that is, it is the absorption of one of our ideas about a particular thing into another idea."

Hm, I've never taken a philosophy of science class or done much reading on the topic. I'm pretty comfortable with Bayesian approaches to scientific theories, but that's about it.
In my understanding of reductionism, we are simply trying to take talk about one thing and put it into terms of a different thing. For example, Quine's push to reduce metaphysics and epistemology (really, all philosophy) into the terms of the natural sciences. I don't know how reductionist methods would be applied in putting the axioms of one physical theory into the terms of a different physical theory.

It seems like we want (at least) three things from a theory: simplicity, consistency, and scope. And I guess these goals help motivate our quest for a theory of everything.
But certain fields, like economics, are incapable of being reduced into talk of physics or psychology. So I'm dubious that one theory could explain every aspect of the universe. Maybe ever aspect of the physical universe?
But this goal doesn't seem reductionist in nature - at least to me. Now we're talking about how theoretical physics could explain observed phenomena within the universe. And while reductionists may also want theories with the broadest possible scope, this goal seems fully compatible with a purely scientific one (unless these are both just aspects of reductionism). But if that's the case, I wonder if the goals and terms of reductionism could themselves be reduced into talk of how we should structure and evaluate scientific theories.

First - you say economics cannot be reduced to physics or psychology.

This obviously is going off on a tangent slightly, but economics cannot be affected by physics, because it is not a material object - it does not exist in a material object, but it is an idea. However, it must be subject to logic. If the ideal economic policy cannot be explained using logic or physics, etc. then there cannot be an ideal economic policy. No things do not have reasons for them.

Also, you talk about the &quothysical universe." What other universe is there? How do abstract ideas exist? Abstract ideas (all branches of mathematics, economics, etc.) only exist as logical placeholders.

Also, from a reductionistic standpoint, psychology could be reduced to more basic things, such as the physics of our brain.

Also, you talk about the &quothysical universe." What other universe is there?

How do abstract ideas exist?

Abstract ideas (all branches of mathematics, economics, etc.) only exist as logical placeholders.