We could, in principle, just describe what a bunch of quantum fields are doing, and get a picture (e.g. view a simulation) of human beings with all their thoughts and feelings — Pfhorrest

I think that's the whole point is that we couldn't just do that. That's the essence of system-emergent properties. As systems co-evolve, new types of inter-relationships come into being which did not exist among the constituent sub-systems.

You could argue, for example, that the laws of chemistry have always existed. But until the long process of plasma-particle-object evolution has actually happened and complex systems capable of housing chemical interactions actually come into being, saying those chemical laws previously existed seems a stretch to me.

Basically, reductionism is an inevitable consequence of the way we've defined the word "explanation". — TheMadFool

Analysis and reductionism are not the same thing. You can analyze anything into its components. It only becomes reductive when you assume that every phenomena at the system level (i.e. the thing being analyzed) must be sufficiently described at the level of the analyzed components.

No it isn't. Whereas "capacity " is a noun indicating "actual or potential ability to perform, yield, or withstand," "initiating" is a verb showing "to begin, set going, or originate — Lida Rose

having the "capacity to act" is the same thing as having the "capacity to initiate an action" to be more precise. So if you can "initiate" an action that is the definition of autotelic. Otherwise, you don't have the capacity to act, you have the capacity "to be acted upon".

Laszlo's reconciliation of the mind-body problem is compelling. It is in his Introduction to Systems Philosophy.

More to system thinking and structuralism. — Olivier5

I'm very much a proponent and advocate of systems philosophy. Have you read Laszlo?

In a less naive form of materialism, Descartes dualism should be reformed into the fundamental duality or ying-yang relationship between matter and information (understood as the infinite shapes and forms that matter can take and 'support'), two sides of the same coin. — Olivier5

Sounds like a reasonable direction to me....

I think Saussure's idea of negative differences between concepts and their absence of clear-cut ontological value is fundamental to understand natural languages. Concepts are relational, the meaning is at the level of the network between concepts more so than inside each concept taken in isolation. — Olivier5

Is this related to the hermenuetic circle?

I think the whole "non-issue" started with the rapid advent and hegemony of science qua mechanism. I think the concepts of "mechanism" and "progress" became improperly intertwined, resulting in a lot of misdirected effort.

Will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires.

Free will is to do so undirected by controlling influences. — Lida Rose

Here's what I don't get about this type of argument. The very definition, "having the capacity to act" is equivalent to "initiating an action" i.e. autotelic behaviour. That, in and of itself, contradicts the possibility that will could be "not free." Being subject to external direction, or being externally caused, means that you do not have the "capacity to act." The secondary, dependent assumption contradicts the primary assumption.

If you can "act," you must, a fortiori, be free.

I went from Derrida to Saussure, and so much that I like in Derrida was already there in Saussure, albeit more ambivalently. The system of differences without positive elements is pretty mind-blowing, and it helped me see Wittgenstein in a new way — path

Very interesting. I read Derrida and Wittgenstein 25 years ago, and did not like either. I think I lacked sufficient context to really understand them. I believe I'll revisit both when I get through all my new purchases.

The fundamental error of reductionism is to believe that that 'small things' (e.g. atoms) always and totally determine big things (e.g. human beings), in a one-way street. But since "to all action a reaction", it stands to reason that, IF the small can have an effect on the big, then the big can have an effect on the small...
an hour ago — Olivier5

Yes, this is becoming pretty much universally appreciated I think. The law of conservation seems to be the one universal constant, and it is uncomplicated: for A to affect B, B must equally affect A. You can't push against nothing.

, such as astronomers deciding pluto is not a planet — ernestm

Yes, that is a pet peeve of mine also. "Planet" is a descriptive category, but it is also an historical one. Scientists can be somewhat...overzealous in their pursuit of categorization, sometimes in changing it and sometimes in defending it.

Also, Saussure is awesome. Culler's little book on him is great. — path

Thanks very much for the recommendation! I was hoping to find a good introduction before tackling the Course and I was able to find a PDF.

Some philosophers are afraid of 'spirit' as too squishy. They wan't to construct an atemporal method for critical thinking, and they fend off insights that suggest the impossibility of such a project .
Others are keen on addressing spirit but angsty about how historical it seems to be. For them the method is a forgotten treasure, not a work still and perhaps endlessly in progress (both spirit and the talk of spirit, which is part of spirit.) — path

Yes, I agree, it is almost as if a big part of the battle is internal. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was the 'little ego' trying to stave off the larger self.....

And why something is more important than other things is exactly because of our social constructs in our mind like nations etc. that simply aren't reduced to atom level interaction. — ssu

I like Popper's three world approach. He describes concepts (social constructs) as constituting their own unique realm (world 3) and quite successfully describes inter-world interactions, I think.

Yes, some people are comfortable with such breathy, substance-free rhetoric that amounts to little more than "Boo reductionism!" ("Boo materialism!" "Boo scientism!) — SophistiCat

I'm very pleased that you have lumped reductionism and materialism in there with scientism. Excellent observation. :up:

So clear that you still haven't managed to identify it. Reductionism isn't even an ontological thesis, and yet the actual target of your vague vituperations seems to be some cartoonish eliminativism. — SophistiCat

Observations? It's intended to be more of a synthesizing exercise, bringing some concepts and points of view together, in the context of my own understanding. Several people appear comfortable with the way reductionism is being characterized, it's neither complicated nor a far reach. The observation is that, ironically, the reductionist enterprise can be seen as constructing a framework for the very things that it denies (emergent properties).

edit. And although I don't like to resort to quicky definitions, your comment about reductionism not being ontological came off as pretty dismissive. From the Stanford EP:

"Reductionism encompasses a set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological claims about the relations between different scientific domains."

Certainly this has always been my own understanding of the concept.

Pfhorrest
2.1k
↪Pantagruel ...and their arrangements?

A 200lb pile of graphite and a 200lb solid diamond grandfather clock are both just 200lbs of carbon atoms, but the arrangement of those atoms makes all the difference. Saying that does not go against the reducibility of them both. — Pfhorrest

Sorry Pfhorrest, I don't understand the point? I'm not saying that reductionism qua analysis is invalid. I'm saying that concluding that there is nothing "above" that level of analysis is unwarranted.

Obedience is essential for development. eg someone practicing music or art must have great discipline/obedience — EnPassant

Are you defining discipline as obedience to one's self?

I then realized that theism is, at its core, a belief that there is a being whose commands one has to obey without question — TheMadFool

Well, everything you wrote surely hinges on this one assumption. I have to ask, do you think this is really the only possible relationship that is possible with a/the divine being? Assuming A is the creator of everything, why in and of itself does that restrict all us little b's and c's and d's to obedience? You are assuming that A is even interested in telling us what to do. Why?

Seems to me free-will is the ultimate gift (in every sense). And if a creator really wanted to create something extraordinary, that would be it.

Just that the complex upper levels are analyzable in terms of simpler lower levels, all the way down to the simplest of things. — Pfhorrest

Right, versus the notion that the whole is actually more than the sum of its parts.

Isn't it a bit more than this? That the special sciences are in principle replaceable by a single fundamental science, usually physics. That means causation is bottom up, and there's no strong emergence of any entirely novel properties. — Marchesk

Yes, what Marchesk said. :up:

The line between a reductionist approach and a non-reductionist approach is pretty clear, and I don't want to get bogged down in versioning. It struck me, as I said, that in meticulously constructing ever more elaborate bottom-up descriptions of how consciousness can be replaced by empirical-causal mechanisms, what reductionists have done - from the contrary perspective - is actually built a very solid framework for the causal interaction of mind and body.

Of course there will be some amount of bottom-up influence from matter to mind. That's the entire issue. But just because there is this "feedforward" capability doesn't mean it necessarily eliminates consciousness. Feeback from consciousness to the environment can also happen. Must happen, in fact, because for any action to take place there must be an equal and opposite reaction. So the environment can only 'influence' consciousness to the extent it is also influenced by consciousness (assuming there is some universal form of conservation law).

Many thanks! I have been a strong believer in embedded cognition since the Varela, Thompson, Rosch book The Embodied Mind. I found it interesting recently reading Mead, he talks about embedded cognition decades before!

There was a philosophy book on embodied cognition that made the claim all of western metaphysics was based on taking metaphors literally. — Marchesk

Can you share the title of that work please? I'm heading into a linguistic-symbolism phase and this sounds quite interesting.

↪Pantagruel German culture has 'Geisteswissenschaften', science of spirit, something sorely lacking in Anglo-American culture. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. The science of sociology has evolved more or less self-consciously to fill this niche, which is what I'm focusing on now.

Since the winter I've covered Marx, Weber, Mead, Habermas. I have some more purely cultural works lined up (Dewey, Habermas' political stuff), then I'm going to move on to sociology of linguistics and symbols (Saussure, Cassirer). All in the context of the history of ideas of course. :)

Kudos :pray: . That's an achievement in its own right. — Wayfarer

Lol! Dilthey is pretty thick. Like a quagmire, but if you get enough underneath you, it is solid enough to stand on. I bought the three volume set about 8 years ago, and got through the first two volumes before I hit saturation point. I only read the third volume last fall.

Reductionism just says that one thing is made entirely out of another thing, not that the former doesn't exist at all and only the latter does. — Pfhorrest

Yes, I am in this particular case focusing on the eliminative/deterministic aspect because of the connection to will and freedom. But I feel the argument applies, mutatis mutandis, to reductionism at its most abstract or general level.

One thing being made out of another thing is the core of systems theory, which very much synthesizes the material elements of reductionism and the mental elements of rationalism or idealism (depending on whether your context is epistemological or ontological) through the approach of "biperspectivisim." Each is an aspect of a complex adaptive system, depending on whether the viewpoint assumed is external or internal. (I posted a while ago about a physics experiment in which results from these two different viewpoints were gathered and compared, such that time appeared to be flowing backwards.)

And reductionism usually does entail the marginalization of emergent properties, as far as I know. Setting aside "hybrid" types that try to reintegrate what the original approach has tried unsuccessfully to exclude (in the face of critical argument and evidence). I feel when schools of thought branch and evolve like this proponents have in a sense become apologists for the original theory.

And I firmly believe the best method of analysis of it is historical and in terms of the history of ideas. It might sound like a very general phrase, but actually it's a specific sub-discipline which you will encounter in some schools of philosophy, comparative religion and cultural history. — Wayfarer

Yes, I have read 3 volumes of the works of Dilthey, who is one of the great historians of ideas. I think that the history of the idea of consciousness, in particular, is in a sense coeval with what we experience as consciousness. I've made that remark on the forum before.

I concur with your assessment of consensus. It's a central theme also.

That's why Science must evolve or die out. Reductionism and Determinism are endangered species. But their fittest genes are still working in those newer forms of scientific investigation. — Gnomon

Yes, that is what Popper would call the positive products of a faulty metaphysical research program.

Reductionism/determinism proves that there is an information channel extending from less complex systems to the more complex systems in which the less complex systems are inter-related. Proves in other words that things like perception and mental-physical interaction take place. Think about it. A determinist argument essentially builds a causal link from the most basic non-mental elements up to the point where it has effects in the mental realm. Does this happen? Sure, it's a feature of mind. But should we therefore eliminate mind, just because it is intimately interconnected with the physical world? Not at all. That is one of its most intriguing features.

Perhaps. But have we ever seen a human being with more than just nominal autonomy? — path

A human being's autonomy always occurs within a context which is potentially open-ended. An automaton always operates within some well-defined context. A human complaining about an online purchase and becoming frustrated with a chatbot might suddenly decide that he does not need a certain type of article, no matter how attractive the price. May suddenly decide to entirely change from a materialistic to a more idealistic form of life, terminate the chat and return the item. Can we imagine the chatbot (or any automaton) ever behaving that way? Even if we programmed it to? Without specific utilities, our automatons lose their meaning.

Will basically is just desire, specifically whichever desire it is that ultimately moves you to act.

Free will is the ability to control what you desire, or at least which desire it is that ultimate moves you to act. — Pfhorrest

I think there is an often overlooked sense of will as restraining or opposing desire. Will as self-control. I think the whole notion of appending "free" to will is a straw man. Determinism is quickly becoming an antiquated viewpoint.

the reductive process that inevitably accompanies critical consensus in order to maximise certainty — Possibility

But don't conflate this reductive tendency with the critical activity itself, they are not the same. So your criticism of critical objectivity applies yes to a reductionist criticism but not to criticism per se.

I wonder if the experience of thought can be reduced to purely symbolic form?

The human experience of consciousness is the product of an instrumental co-evolution with the environment. And the entire process of symbolic interaction in which thought is codified and represented is both social and instrumental in nature. So whether an abstract instantiation of rules can have the same end result as an actual in situ consciousness seems questionable to me.

I'm sure the simulation of consciousness will eventually be perfected. But in what sense will such a construct ever be genuinely self-determining? Could it spontaneously formulate and act upon novel motivations? A human being can construct a simple song after just hearing someone else sing. Could a computer do this without having some kind of musical theory programming?

I don't think any kind of 'brain in a box' simulation will answer these questions. The acid test would be genuine functional human simulacrum with more than just nominal autonomy. And I think such a mechanism is a long way off.

That is probably referring to the scientific method. — Congau

It's actually Popper's own and central formulation, called critical or scientific realism.

I could get into the experiences I have had on mushrooms, but critics may devalue them as hallucinations caused by the drug. — Punshhh

Huxley wrote a book called "The Island" about the doomed utopia of Pala, a technologically limited but socially advanced society. Mushrooms played a key role in the awakening of the citizenry, quite extensively explored.

This problem is solved if we stop trying to understand the events. :-) — Nuke

Or question them.

I made this point some time back, but the two central protagonists on this thread enjoy discussing philosophical perspectives of mystical experiences that are better understood by actual practitioners. — jgill

:up:

I just thought I would share. I find that the works of great thinkers are invariably sprinkled with aphoristic gems that are like little bubbles of clarity. I like to think of them as "core concepts" that transcend and bridge the larger philosophical contexts of dispute.....

What an awful lot of commentary on poor old "communism". I'm sure everyone is aware this is an umbrella term, which covers an awful lot of ideological ground.

List of communist ideologies

From where I sit, democratic-capitalism is far more of a failed experiment. Marx's theory of surplus value sheds some pretty clear light on why capitalism literally can't ever work.

Ok, but if one dumps the explanations then there is no course, other than to the experience.

This is what this thread is about, can we enter into meaningful discourse about something which is an intensely personal experience?
— Punshhh — Nuke

Mystical events, which are only incompletely communicable in words, cannot be fully understood by those untouched by such experiences.
~Max Weber

You're just confusing empathy with sympathy.
— Isaac
I don't believe I am. If you replace the words "sympathy for the words "empathy" in my paragraph it makes no sense. — Wheatley

Yes, "cognitive empathy" is the ability to take the perspective of the other and it is germane to personality development in sociation.

edit. However you are conflating the cognitive and affective senses of empathy in your hypothesis, I think. Cognitively, I can empathize with the sociopath while, per impossibile, I cannot feel what it is like to have no feelings..