Doug, > Reductionists have a well-earned reputation for performing blind > over-simplifications in their often miss-guided attempts to analyze > complex systems.
Viewing this as a failure is grossly misunderstanding science. Science works by proposing theories (=mechanisms) of how something works. They get more complex with time, then simpler (on a different level of abstraction) - undulating waves of success and failure. But saying that reductionism is bad because some posited mechanical models are false is clearly wrong. > The ego that allows one to assume that non-humans can be reductively > explained as automata has already demonstrated a mind-numbing blindness > to the complexities of the world around him. The 360 years since > Descarte have not changed human nature much: there are still plenty of > people who view the world in similar simplisctic and egotistic manner. Why is reductionism simplistic and egotistic? What would a non-simplistic and non-egotistic explanation be? And since when are theories like QED simple, despite being reductionist? *confused* Günther -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://www.complexitystudies.org/ Thesis: http://www.complexitystudies.org/proposal/ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
