DM: Come on, reductionism suggests that a description of higher levels in terms of lower ones is complete, emergence says they are not. Emergence suggests that when we speak about human behaviour the language for describing the behaviour of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, etc would not give us the full story. Same for sociobiological explanations. Let's face it all this MOQing can'e be explained in terms of my reproductive ends I'd suggest. Unless you fancy a quick one?
[Krimel] Reductionism is nothing more that taking big problems and breaking them into smaller ones. DM: I'd call that analytics myself, and it is great but you alsoneed the big picture. No one suggests that the battle of Waterloo can be completely understood in terms of the interactions of chemistry and physics. DM: My point entirely. Same goes for natural history. That would be an extraordinarily naïve view of reduction. DM: Reduction is not reductionism. On the other hand biology only emerges from chemistry when there is sufficient stability at the level of chemical compounds for more complex or dynamic interactions to occur among them. A complete understanding of the Battle of Waterloo would require explanations at all levels. An adequate explanation would depend on ones particular focus of interest and level of detail. DM: Well, of course. Hell of a description from particles up to the emergence of mounted revolutionary citizen soldiers. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
