On Feb 15, 12:56 pm, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: > On 15 February 2011 00:42, 1Z <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> I've tried to argue before that the "causal closure of physics" is a > >> very strong claim that is also very restrictive if applied > >> consistently. Trouble is, in my view, it very rarely is so applied. > >> The Hard Problem, and the corresponding zombie intuition, is a sort of > >> reductio of the strongest version of this claim - i.e. that what > >> "exists" is reducible to a micro-physical substrate that is fully > >> constitutive of all phenomena of whatever type. If this proposition > >> were ever to be taken at face value, then further theorising would > >> perforce just stop right there; indeed there can be no "theories" in > >> such a scenario, just the sub-atomic events that might have been said > >> (but by whom?) to underlie them. > > > No, that wouldn't follow because REDUCTION IS NOT ELIMINATION!!! > > Yes, so you keep saying, or in this case, shouting ;-) And of course > I agree with you. To claim that reality consisted solely of > "disconnected events" would of course be nonsensical. Any such > proposition leads directly to a reductio ad absurdum; observation > informs us that reality is manifestly integrated at multiple levels. > But this is the point: all such observation is a posteriori; it isn't > a priori deducible from the theory of a fundamental substrate of > micro-physical entities and their relations.
Asserted without evidence argument. AFAICS, any *correct* theory must, as an analytical truth, recover *all* appearances including appearances of integration...that is what a "correct theory" means. > Moreover, such a theory > does not, a priori, legitimise or require the postulation of complex > higher-order entities *irreducible* higher order entities. Houses still exist, but they are made of bricks which are made of.... > in order to account for the state of affairs at > its own level. But this state of affairs, ex hypothesi, exhausts what > is real. Therefore if we properly reduce - or restrict - our account > to this level, and hence eliminate any appeal to higher-level concepts > or states, nothing real should be left out. But this does not accord > with observation. What observation? That there are higher order entities? But reductionism *says* there are. It just says they are reducible. > Consequently, higher-level states must also be, in > some ineliminable sense "real", So what? The claim of reductionism is that they are reducible, not that they are eliminable! You are arguing from your incorrect premise. >or to put it another way, both > differentiation and integration must play a role in an adequate > account of reality. But didn't you just agree that integration isn't absent from scientific accounts? If we want to explain how ice, liquid water and steam are made of the same components, we must also explain how those components are "integrated" in each case--how they are bound together or not as the case may be-- so that we can save appearances, and explain the differences between them. > Remember I'm just doing accounting, not peddling solutions. My point, > on this accounting, is that the elusive HP and its zombie spawn seem > to be the consequence of an incomplete tally of what is "real", and > that this in turn is consequent on intuiting the "completeness" of > micro-physical theory in the wrong spirit. > Still unclear. Are you saying that reductionism can't solve the HP because it can't integrate anything (although I have just explained how it can and must)? Or just making the more standard argument that the HP is an exceptional problem? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
