Refutation of reductionism (excerpt from "The Fabric of Reality," by David Deutsch)

hypnagogue

The whole title of this thread should read "Refutation of reductionism as a fundamental explanatory framework (excerpt from The Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch)" but there wasn't enough room for that.

Anyway, I'm posting this as a general topic of discussion as well as to directly address arguments that hold that, for instance, an emotion like love is best, or most scientifically, viewed as "merely" the result of chemical reactions in the brain. With further ado:

A reductionist thinks that science is about analyzing
things into components. An instrumentalist thinks that it is
about predicting things. To either of them, the existence of
high-level sciences is merely a matter of convenience.
Complexity prevents us from using fundamental physics to make
high-level predictions, so instead we guess what those
predictions would be if we could make them-- emergence gives us
a chance of doing that successfully-- and supposedly that is
what the higher-level sciences are about. Thus to reductionists
and instrumentalists, who disregard both the real structure and
the real purpose of scientific knowlege, the base of the
predictive hiearchy of physics is by definition the 'theory of
everything.' But to everyone else scientific knowledge consists
of explanations, and the structure of scientific explnations
does not reflect the reductionist hierarchy. There are
explanations at every level of hierarchy. Many of them are
autonomous, referring only to concepts at that particular level
(for instance, 'the bear ate the honey because it was hungry').
Many involve deductions in the opposite direction to that of
reductive explanation. That is, they explain things not by
analyzing them into smaller, simpler things but by regarding
them as components of larger, more complex things-- about which
we nevertheless have explanatory theories. For example, consider
one particular copper atom at the tip of the nose of the statue
of Sir Winston Churchill that stands in Parliament Square in
London. Let me try to explain why that copper atom is there. It
is because Churchill served as prime minister in the House of
Commons nearby; and because his ideas and leadership contributed
to the Allied victory in the Second World War; and because it is
customary to honor such people by putting up statues of them;
and because bronze, a traditional material for such statues,
contains copper, an so on. Thus we explain a low-level physical
observation-- the presence of a copper atom at a particular
location-- through extremely high-level theories about emergent
phenomena such as ideas, leadership, war and tradition.

There is no reason why there should exist, even in
principle, any lower-level explanation of the presence of
that copper atom than the one I have just given. Presumably a
reductive 'theory of everything' would in principle make a
low-level prediction of the probability that such a
statue will exist, given the condition of (say) the solar system
at some earlier date. It would also in principle describe how
the statue probably got there. But such descriptions and
predictions (wildly infeasible, of course) would explain
nothing. They would merely describe the trajectory that each
copper atom followed from the copper mine, through the smelter
and the sculptor's studio, and so on. They could also state how
those trajectories were influenced by forces exerted on
surrounding atoms, such as those compromising the miners' and
the sculptor's bodies, and so predict the existence and shape of
the statue. In fact such a prediction would have to refer to
atoms all over the planet, engaged in the complex motion we call
the Second World War, among other things. But even if you had
the superhuman capacity to follow such lengthy predictions of
the copper atom's being there, you would still not be able to
say, 'Ah yes, now I understand why it is there.' You would
merely know that its arrival there in that way was inevitable
(or likely, or whatever), given all the atoms' initial
configurations and the laws of physics. If you wanted to
understand why, you would still have no option but to take a
further step. You would have to inquire into what it is about
that configuration of atoms, and those trajectories, that gave
them the propensity to deposit a copper atom at this location.
Pursuing this inquiry would be a creative task, as discovering
new explanations always is. You would have to discover that
certain atomic configurations support emergent phenomena such as
leadership and war, which are related to one another by
high-level explanatory theories. Only when you knew those
theories could you understand fully (emphasis mine) why that copper atom is where it is.

In the reductionist world-view, the laws governing
subatomic particle interactions are of paramount importance, as
they are the base of the hierarchy of all knowledge. But in the
real structure of scientific knowledge, and in the structure of
our knowledge generally, such laws have a much more humble role.

RageSk8

I agree pretty much with everything that is said here. Good piece.

RageSk8

I think it is important, when discussing the achievements of the scientific revolution, to make a distinction... between particle physics, together with those microstructural parts of natural science that can be easily linked to partical physics, and all of the rest of natural science. Particle physics, unfortunately, fascinates many contemporary philosophers... Quine once said that the reason the indeterminacy of translation was distinct from the indeterminacy of theory was that the differences in psychological explainations, unlike those in biological explainations, made no difference to the motion of elementary particles. David Lewis thinks that all objects in the universe are gerrymandered artifacts except those elementary particles. Sellers himself was all too inclined to describe nature in Democritean terms as "atoms and void" and to invert pseudo-problems about how to reconcile the "scientific" with the "manifest" image of human beings.

To guard against this simpleminded and reductionistic way of thinking of nonhuman nature, it is useful to remember the form of intelligibility shared by Newton's primitive corpulscluarianism and contemporary particle physics has no counterpart in, for example, the geology of plate tectonics or in Darwin's and Mendal's accounts of heredity and evolution. What we get in those areas of natural science are narratives, natural histories, rather than the subsumption of events under laws....

If we are trying to give philosophy Wittgensteinian peace, we should do what Dewey did: try to make all the traditional philosophical "dichotmoies" look like overdramatizations of the banal fact that different tools serve different purposes. We should treat the fact that you cannot use intentional talk and particle talk simultaneously as just as philosophically sterile as the fact that you cannot play baseball and jai alai simultaneously....

Richard Rorty, "John Mcdowell's Version of Empericism"

Hurkyl

There is one problem with any argument such as this;

If you don't yet completely understand something, how do you know how a complete understanding should look?

Les Sleeth

Originally posted by hypnagogue
. . . I'm posting this as a general topic of discussion as well as to directly address arguments that hold that, for instance, an emotion like love is best, or most scientifically, viewed as "merely" the result of chemical reactions in the brain.

I'd like to hear more about how you see the article as relevant to what I assume you are pointing at -- the gap between structure and emergent phenomenon.

Without hearing your opinion, I could say that I think Deutsch makes good points, but I don't know how far the he takes his reasoning.

If he is critiquing "-ists" in general, whether it be reductionists, or creationists, or logical positivists or, my favorite, pragmatists, then I like it. But if he is singling out one "-ist" as inferior to other "-ists" then I think more needs to be said.

Reductionism works perfectly well for getting at component parts, and understanding the base structure of things. But if one comes to believe that all understanding can be derived from this single mental process, that is when it becomes a problem. In that sense, any sort of "'ist" is bound to be lacking in those mental disciplines he is ignoring in order to exclusively apply what he has chosen as his own.

So why single out reductionists? I'd rather see him point the finger at all "-ists." But maybe he is doing that . . . it's just that I can't tell from your excerpt.

Iacchus32

So what's the point in breaking things down to their basic component level without having a higher capacity of intelligence to do so? Does it even begin to convey the nature of that higher intelligence?

What's the difference between building a radio receiver and listening to the music that it broadcasts?

Les Sleeth

Originally posted by Iacchus32
So what's the point in breaking things down to their basic component level without having a higher capacity of intelligence to do so? Does it even begin to convey the nature of that higher intelligence?

What's the difference between building a radio receiver and listening to the music that it broadcasts?

I don't know who you are asking, but I would answer you that there is no competition between understanding components and the abilities of intelligence overall. The first gives us the ability to create, and the second gives the ability to appreciate what's been created.

So there is a big difference between building that radio and listening. If not for what reduction reveals, there would be no radio to listen to; if not for the ability to appreciate music, no one would try to build a radio!

drag

Greetings !

hypnagogue, what exactly is your point ?
You did not as I see it, fortunately - 'cause this would just
require this thread to be moved into God and Religion,
directly refute what you call reductionism. So what is
it that you're saying ?

There are many different scientific ways of viewing things.
However, science's primary tool is mathematics and what
we call today - logic, to discribe a phenomenon in FULL one
has to start from its most basic known components known.
To deny this basic way of scientific discription and explanation
and to say that science can just deal with the Universe on
different levels WITHOUT making the abvious connections WHEN
it is technicly possible is just a bunch of crap - probably
religion inpired crap. No offense.[;)]

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
Leonardo Da Vinci

Live long and prosper.

Iacchus32

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I don't know who you are asking, but I would answer you that there is no competition between understanding components and the abilities of intelligence overall. The first gives us the ability to create, and the second gives the ability to appreciate what's been created.

So there is a big difference between building that radio and listening. If not for what reduction reveals, there would be no radio to listen to; if not for the ability to appreciate music, no one would try to build a radio!

But what if the radio were already there? (i.e., our brain). And we're still trying to figure out how it's put together? Does it really speak about the nature of the intelligence behind what's functional or complete? (i.e., consciousness itself). In fact we can pick up a lot of things over the radio other than that which tells us how the radio goes together. And like I say, we're still uncertain how it goes together.

hypnagogue

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I'd like to hear more about how you see the article as relevant to what I assume you are pointing at -- the gap between structure and emergent phenomenon.

Without hearing your opinion, I could say that I think Deutsch makes good points, but I don't know how far the he takes his reasoning.

If he is critiquing "-ists" in general, whether it be reductionists, or creationists, or logical positivists or, my favorite, pragmatists, then I like it. But if he is singling out one "-ist" as inferior to other "-ists" then I think more needs to be said.

Reductionism works perfectly well for getting at component parts, and understanding the base structure of things. But if one comes to believe that all understanding can be derived from this single mental process, that is when it becomes a problem. In that sense, any sort of "'ist" is bound to be lacking in those mental disciplines he is ignoring in order to exclusively apply what he has chosen as his own.

So why single out reductionists? I'd rather see him point the finger at all "-ists." But maybe he is doing that . . . it's just that I can't tell from your excerpt.

This passage is excerpted from the first chapter of the book, in which Deutsch is concerned with, among other things, distinguishing between knowledge and understanding. He is concerned in this particular passage with debunking the reductionist attitude that, as you put it, all understanding can be derived from reductionism-- or rather, that the understanding of nature afforded us by reductionism is somehow more fundamental than or (when you get down to it) superior to more higher-level understandings. It goes back to knowledge and understanding. Reductionism-- analysis of the most basic component parts of nature and the simple mathematical laws they follow-- gives us great predictive power (knowledge), in theory enough predictive power to anticipate the existence all the higher-level phenomena that the atomic world underlies. But Deutsch's point is that knowing is not understanding, specifically that simply knowing/being able to predict the behavior of atomic particles is a poor basis for actually understanding many macroscopic phenomena.

So he's not so much singling out reductionists as he is asserting that there is no 'privileged' level of analysis of reality that, for all cases, will give you a fundamentally superior vantage point than any other. In fact, he gives a similar (though much briefer) treatment to holism as he does to reductionism, on the same objection-- it assumes a static and privileged level of analysis (the whole).

This is the sense in which I find the excerpt relevant to many reductionist arguments. For example, speaking in terms of neurotransmitters or evolution is a pretty crummy way to come about a really good understanding of the nature of love. Or rather-- they are only complementary pieces to a much larger puzzle, and they're not even the biggest pieces. Here the appropriate paradigm shift is not from one scale of objective reality to another, but rather the more radical shift of the objective to the subjective.

hypnagogue

Originally posted by drag
Greetings !

hypnagogue, what exactly is your point ?
You did not as I see it, fortunately - 'cause this would just
require this thread to be moved into God and Religion,
directly refute what you call reductionism. So what is
it that you're saying ?

There are many different scientific ways of viewing things.
However, science's primary tool is mathematics and what
we call today - logic, to discribe a phenomenon in FULL one
has to start from its most basic known components known.
To deny this basic way of scientific discription and explanation
and to say that science can just deal with the Universe on
different levels WITHOUT making the abvious connections WHEN
it is technicly possible is just a bunch of crap - probably
religion inpired crap. No offense.[;)]

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
Leonardo Da Vinci

Live long and prosper.

My apologies if the thread title is a little unclear (the text limit for title lengths is pretty restrictive). Hopefully my last post will clarify what I meant to get across.

Again, what Deutsch argues-- and what I agree with-- is not the validity of reductionism as a scientific method. It is only the attitude that, because we can decompose the world in to atomic components whose behavior we can predict very well, that that atomic level of analysis is somehow the 'best' or most fundamental for deriving an understanding of nature. To use Deutsch's example, we understand the behavior of the bear eating honey better if we explain that it is hungry than if we try to explain the peculiar motion of billions of molecules in its brain.

drag

Greetings !

Originally posted by hypnagogue
My apologies if the thread title is a little unclear (the text limit for title lengths is pretty restrictive). Hopefully my last post will clarify what I meant to get across.

It does more or less. Thanks ! [:)]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Again, what Deutsch argues-- and what I agree with-- is not the validity of reductionism as a scientific method. It is only the attitude that, because we can decompose the world in to atomic components whose behavior we can predict very well, that that atomic level of analysis is somehow the 'best' or most fundamental for deriving an understanding of nature. To use Deutsch's example, we understand the behavior of the bear eating honey better if we explain that it is hungry than if we try to explain the peculiar motion of billions of molecules in its brain.

I agree.

However, I want to understand the basis of the objection
contained here, from your perspective. As I see it the only reason for using the other type of explanations is if they provide a more
precise explanation. For such a perspective the only problem
is technical - if we COULD do this by using the reductionist
way then it would certainly be the most accurate and precise explanation possible and that's the one we should use
in science (IF it's technicly possible) and in general for
best effectivity. What I want to understand is - Is that also
the way you see it or are you implying some other reasons ?

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
Leonardo Da Vinci

Live long and prosper.

hypnagogue

Originally posted by Hurkyl
There is one problem with any argument such as this;

If you don't yet completely understand something, how do you know how a complete understanding should look?

I don't think anyone said anything about a complete understanding in the first place.

But anyway, I'll let Deutsch speak for himself on this one... I'm pulling these a little out of context, but it's not hard to figure out what he considers to be factors that comprise a better understanding, relative to older theories:

"...modern theories are far fewer, and their explanatory power gives them other properties such as beauty, inner logic and connections with other subjects that makes them easier to learn."

and again

"That is, new ideas often do more than just supercede, simply or unify existing ones. They also extend human understanding into areas that were previously not understood at all-- or whose very existence was not guessed at. They may open up new opportunities, new problems, new specializations and even new subjects."

Don't take this as the end-all, I just can't be bothered for now to fish up any excerpts that might be more directly relevant..

There's also the issue of complexity-- the more compact and elegant a theory is (in general) the better the understanding it gives you.

Iacchus32

Originally posted by drag
Greetings !

hypnagogue, what exactly is your point ?
You did not as I see it, fortunately - 'cause this would just
require this thread to be moved into God and Religion,
directly refute what you call reductionism. So what is
it that you're saying ?

There are many different scientific ways of viewing things.
However, science's primary tool is mathematics and what
we call today - logic, to discribe a phenomenon in FULL one
has to start from its most basic known components known.
To deny this basic way of scientific discription and explanation
and to say that science can just deal with the Universe on
different levels WITHOUT making the abvious connections WHEN
it is technicly possible is just a bunch of crap - probably
religion inpired crap. No offense.[;)]

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
Leonardo Da Vinci

Live long and prosper.

Yes, but did we have a brain before science said it was okay to "believe" we had a brain? And how on earth did people ever get along when they didn't know they had them? Yes, it's because of "our brains" that the wonders of science have opened up to us, and yet before that time (within the past few hundred years), would it be fair to say that our brains were fully dysfunctional? That doesn't make the least bit of sense.

We need to understand one thing, that this miraculous thing we call the human mind has been processing information for thousands of years. And to insist that it hasn't been functioning properly until recently, sounds the epitome of foolishness indeed.

Royce

I may be reading it wrong but it seems to me to be Aristotlism vs Platoism again but in modern terms.
If nature or the universe were perfectly deterministic and we had the brain or computer power to do it, then reductionism possibly could indeed explain and predict everything physical or objective. However, it would never explain beauty or love or why that statue was built and erected in the first place. Sure given the circumstances and human nature, culture and psychology it might predict that a memorial would be built for Churchill but where and what kind? Why a statue and why bronze. I don't think that we are that predictable or the universe that deterministic.
Objectivity or reductionism is only part of the universe. I don't think we could deduct or predict the universe from studying sub-atomic particles. Nor could we know what a mouse is by studying one of its cells.

hypnagogue

Originally posted by drag
However, I want to understand the basis of the objection
contained here, from your perspective. As I see it the only reason for using the other type of explanations is if they provide a more
precise explanation. For such a perspective the only problem
is technical - if we COULD do this by using the reductionist
way then it would certainly be the most accurate and precise explanation possible and that's the one we should use
in science (IF it's technicly possible) and in general for
best effectivity. What I want to understand is - Is that also
the way you see it or are you implying some other reasons ?

In general, that's not the way I see it. To use Deutsch's example of the atom of copper in the Churchill statue-- I suppose the purely atomic explanation is the most precise (assuming we are able to do it) but it's not the best way of looking at the question posed. The question, even in theory, is better answered using higher level concepts such as war and leadership. You may then inquire as to the nature of war and leadership, and so on, and eventually the best explanation in the chain of questioning might get back down to the atomic level.

But I think the point, more generally, is this. If we picture a flow chart encompassing all scales of reality, then to explain a phenomenon at any given level, the reductionist assumes that the best understanding is given by what we might call an explanatory arrow that always points downward, deeper and deeper down the chart until it reaches the atomic realm. Deutsch argues-- and I agree-- that the best direction for this explanatory arrow is not always straight down. Sometimes it is lateral, staying within a given scale, and sometimes it also points upward toward higher scales that impose structure on the lower ones.

Another analogy we might want to consider is linear algebra. Sometimes you get the best understanding of a given problem by analyzing the mathematical behavior of the components of the given vectors and matrices; other times, you get a better understanding when you treat the matrices and vectors as variables themselves (for instance, something like Ax = B). Perhaps there is some way in which your understanding is more precise if you always approach linear algebra by analyzing the components of vectors and matrices, but it is easy to think of any number of examples where you simply understand the problem at hand better if you analyze it at a higher level of abstraction; it is easier for you to see why certain relationships should exist, derive new ones, etc.

Les Sleeth

Originally posted by hypnagogue
But Deutsch's point is that knowing is not understanding, specifically that simply knowing/being able to predict the behavior of atomic particles is a poor basis for actually understanding many macroscopic phenomena.

So he's not so much singling out reductionists as he is asserting that there is no 'privileged' level of analysis of reality that, for all cases, will give you a fundamentally superior vantage point than any other. In fact, he gives a similar (though much briefer) treatment to holism as he does to reductionism, on the same objection-- it assumes a static and privileged level of analysis (the whole).

Yes, we've debated these exact issues here. People do tend to zero in on one particular analytical perspective as the "Way," and when it fails to reveal what another analytical approach does, they say what the other perspective claims must be false (e.g., demostrate love exists empirically; if you can't then most likely doesn't exist). It's like that old bit of wisdom, "if the only tool you have is a hammer, you go around treating everything like a nail."

In this very thread you can see people who only want to look at things holistically, and resist parts analysis at every turn; and reductionists who don't want to rise up out of part complexity to look at the whole thing.

I really think this is one of the most important issues of developing one's consciousness.

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Here the appropriate paradigm shift is not from one scale of objective reality to another, but rather the more radical shift of the objective to the subjective.

Yes, another important area of consciousness development. I would add that there are important issues to be decided about what subjective experiences are most developmental. One debate that goes on at PF is the untrustworthiness of subjectivity in the pursuit of knowledge. l've said I think subjectivity has gotten a bad rap because of those who practice it poorly; and, just as there is effective and ineffective objectivity, the same is true for subjectivity.

By the way, welcome to PF . . . it's good to see another thinker has joined the group.

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RageSk8	I agree pretty much with everything that is said here. Good piece.

Hurkyl Recognitions: Gold Member Science Advisor Staff Emeritus	Refutation of reductionism (excerpt from "The Fabric of Reality," by David Deutsch) There is one problem with any argument such as this; If you don't yet completely understand something, how do you know how a complete understanding should look?

Iacchus32	So what's the point in breaking things down to their basic component level without having a higher capacity of intelligence to do so? Does it even begin to convey the nature of that higher intelligence? What's the difference between building a radio receiver and listening to the music that it broadcasts?