Re: Reductionism

On Oct 15, 9:20 am, Alpha <omegazero2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 14, 7:08 pm, Alpha <omegazero2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip>

PS: You really ought to become more familiar with all the diiferent
aspects of QM and QFT before responding in a confused manner again,
based on a dogmatic, unthinking approach you seem to manifest.  I
suggest for example (as I have before) Quantum Implications: Essays in
Honer of David Bohm.  This book has a who's who of modern physicists
reflecting on the conundrums QM and QFT presents.

Also, BTW, just to clairfy your muddled mind up a bit, Laughlin's take
is as much *against* the efficacy of reduction as for the efficacy of
emergence.

"In its strongest form, reductionism deems the knowledge of elementary
particles and general laws of physics to be sufficient for a complete
description of everything that exists. However, if this were the case,
then any science besides physics would be merely auxiliary.
However, in many cases reductionalistic explanations are impossible
while referring to collective phenomena. When several iron atoms are
lying next to one another, they align themselves like a compass needle
– this is not reductionalistically explainable. Therefore, Robert B.
Laughlin, this year’s main lecturer of the Unseld Lectures, calls for
a self-restraint of the construction of theories in physics. He
criticises his academic discipline for continuously attempting to
transfer laws from the macroscopical to any other level. According to
Laughlin, the laws of nature are emerging from collective self-
organisation. The laws of physics do not precede the order of nature,
but rather are emergent themselves. "
" (Unseld Lectures eld Lecture 2008 May 6th, 2008, 8 p.m., Audimax,
University of Tuebingen
Prof. Dr. Robert P. Laughlin, Physics, Stanford:
"The Age of Emergence" )

Note the ref to strong reductionism which is the type that I have
objections about as well, just like Laughlin. And it seems you would
agree with strong reductionism based on your prior comments to the
effect that any other levels of behavior description is an
abstraction.  That is what I and Laughlin disagree with - your
position that there are no real entities or laws or equations that
deal with emergent phenomena that cannot be accounted for by reducing
to simpler laws/particles/entities etc.

As a corollary:  E.g., "According to emergent theory, particles of
matter
acting together can generate physical laws spontaneously." That is
right in keeping with my idea that new operators appear that *are not
reducible to microscopic "laws"* and are not *predicatable* by such
lower-level "laws".  Note that my agreement is with the phrase: "can
generate physical laws spontaneously" - new ontological realities
appear (are generated)!

And: "Emergent structures are patterns not created by a single event
or rule. For a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be
unpredictable from a lower level description. " (From Solid State to
Bio-Complexity: On the Emerging Science of Emergence: Supramolecular
Structure and Function, Davor Pavuna).

 Right in keeping with my contention that emergent structures are not
predictable from reduced explanations of a phenomena (which makes a
reduced version "irrelevent" (as Laughlin explicitly called
it!!!!!!!)).

Further: " Despite the fact that for the last 400 years reductionism
has been quite successful in explaining the behavior of the natural
world, lately there has been a growing realization of its
shortcomings. These include difficulties with constituent reductionism
as one delves into the subatomic realm described by quantum mechanics
and relativistic physics, as well as the removal of the observer from
the domain of nature that we endeavor to understand. The greatest
strength of reductionism is in dealing with linear systems, but much
of nature is not linear, including most of what is really interesting
in the world. Progress in solving nonlinear equations has come only in
the last 50 years with the advent of computers, allowing us to study
such phenomena as emergent structures, chaos, tipping points,
spontaneous pattern formation, synchronization, and coherence."

and:

"As one ascends the levels of organizational complexity, from
inanimate matter to multicellular organisms, one clear trend is the
growing freedom from physical limitations. Just a few examples will
suffice. Living organisms locally violate the trend toward increasing
entropy by maintaining themselves as islands of order. Warm-blooded
animals, such as mammals and birds, maintain a constant body
temperature regardless of the temperature of the surroundings. We
differ from animals in our relative freedom from the tyranny of
instinct. With our technology –balloons, airplanes, and rockets – we
easily transcend the limitations of the law of gravity without
violating it. ... As Robert Laughlin expresses it, “the tendency of
nature to form a hierarchical society of physical laws is much more
than an academic debating point. (…) It renders the most fundamental
laws, whatever they are, irrelevant and protects us from being
tyrannized by them”

I understand nature also to be observed as a hierarchy of information/
meaning attribution, increasing "energy"**_eventing_complexity and
comcommitant negentropy.

** - in all its forms.

(http://www.metanexus.net/conferences/pdf/conference2006/
Jargodski.pdf)

Reflects some of my positions WRT linear vs non-linear systems.

As such, some interesting basics on emergence and reductionism is in
order:

"Emergence is a relation between parts and wholes. The everyday notion
is that a system composed of parts can exhibit novel properties not
innate to
its parts." (Johannes Knollehttp://web.gc.cuny.edu/philosophy/papers/conference/2008/knolle.pdf)

Importantly, I would add to the end of that : "...and the parts'
interactions."

That would make you comfortable, I presume ,WRT the definition of
strong emergence. That is, that strong emergence *also includes*
phenomena that are not reducible to pats and *their* interactions.

Now, what is important here is that that augmented defintion (with
which I would agree - as far as it goes) claims it is indeed the
interaction between the *whole and its parts* that is the emergent
phenomena or produces the emergent phenomena that we observe.  This is
like my contention that reductionism would and does not account for
the interaction of the whole and the constituent parts. That is it is
the *whole* that comes to possess unreducible properties/processes
that *affect* the parts.  E.g., operator creation - operand
appearances - and their interaction at the *level of the whole alone*
(that is - are not interactions *between* the parts, but are instead,
interactions between the whole and its parts - say, an order parameter
or an organizational law that sets boundary conditions on the parts -
common in both  linear and non-linear systems).

That is *not* to say that there still may not apply such
intertheoretic reductions and some form of supervenience


PS:
A subtle but important point WRT the last phrase above.

What I like to call "weak supervenience; that is, I do not agree
completely with Howard (***) WRT his assertion/
interpretation_of_the_matter_boils_down_to one of of R-emergence and S-
emergence (His definition of emergence splits into either the denial
of intertheoretic reduction as R-emergence or the denial of
supervenience as S-emergence).

I.e., one can support a partial supervenience as I do (as a dependency
- weak or strong) and still support emergence as given in some of the
examples given in the above referenced paper (Johannes Knolle
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/philosophy/papers/conference/2008/knolle.pdf),
which would be denied given a strict interpretation of Howard)!




*** - Howard, Don (2003). "Reduction and Emergence
in the Physical Sciences: Some Lessons from the
Particle Physics-Condensed Matter Physics Debate"
http://www.nd.edu/%7Edhoward1/Reduction%20and%20Emergence.pdf
(December 2007)

relationships. in that, for example, one can have emergent systems
that still *depend* on lower level phenomena (as is the case I propose
when I say that everything is QM; I am saying that there is dependency
there and emergent laws/equations cannot prove inconsistent with
"lower level" laws or other observations). But importantly, the
emergent laws do not *have* to be reducible to those lower-level or
other laws. To necessitate such is more of an ideological position vs.
a empirically-driven or an a forteriori position

So - just some more fodder and clarifying material.

.

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