James, When you say you are losing your sense of what a reductive explanation you make me feel like I am being included in a club. Misery loves company.
My first approximation of what a reductive explanation is that its any explanation which involves the use of the word "just". "It's just a case of." There is up reduction and down reduction. You ask, "why is my teenager behaving in such a dumb way?" and the lad's mother answers "It's just peer pressure, " I (and perhaps nobody else in the world) think of that as an up=reductive explanation. But the explanations that most people think of as reductive are "down-reductive." "consciousness is just brain activity" is a classic down-reductive explanation. One of the tricky questions is, what exactly do we mean by up and down here. If by down, we mean explanation in terms of smaller entities, then we immediately encounter a problem. I dont think anybody is dumb enough to assert that neural activity ... in the sense of facts about what individual neurons are doing ... is ever going to help us understand consciousness. Clearly, it is the ORGANIZATION of what neurons do that is crucial to consciousness. The the organization of brain activity at any one instant is not in any use SMALLER than the mind. In a sense it seems to be on the same level as the mind, hense neither an up nor a down reduction. I amjust back at my house with my caveman phone connection to the web, so wont say more now. Thanks for your thoughts, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([email protected]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: James Steiner <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]>; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> > Date: 6/7/2009 9:36:59 PM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] quick question > > I have to admit, I've just reached the limit of my competence. I don't > know what it means for an explanation to be reductive. I'll have to go > read something about that--my lack of formal education is exposed. > > A triangle (made of parts) is the name for a particular arrangement of > parts. If you arrange the parts differently, it isn't a triangle > anymore. > > That arrangement of parts has the property of being self-supporting. > So, yes, in my experience, triangularity causes rigidity that, say, > square-ity does not. > > Also, note that the whole discussion of triangles being sturdy only > applies to hollow triangles, e.g. struts and joints. If the > non-triangle is solid, then discussions about stiffness or rigidity as > compared to solid triangles becomes > irrelevant--physically/mechanically speaking, the play of forces is > different. Distortion of the angles is less a problem, buckling > becomes an issue. > > ~~James > > On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Nicholas > Thompson<[email protected]> wrote: > > James, > > > > Your explanation is in terms of the arrangement of the parts... arrangement > > and connection, if you will. Am I correct? > > > > Would you characterize that explanation as a reductive one? This is not a > > trick question. I genuinely want to know. > > > > And should one speak of downward causation here? Is triangularity CAUSING > > immobility of the joints? > > > > Nick
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