4 ms·

Maxwell's Demon might have a thing or two to say to you. The fallacy is to believe that reduction is a total property of the territory, rather than a property o

Maxwell's Demon might have a thing or two to say to you. The fallacy is to believe that reduction is a total property of the territory, rather than a property of some of the territory that lends to a certain kind of map. We know that there are phenomena in the world with strong boundaries and there are phenomena with weaker boundaries. It may be that at low scales things can be easily separated, but that doesn't have to translate to how easy it is to tease-apart macro-phenomena. Heck below atoms, which lend themselves most strongly to the reductionist intuition, we have quantum waves. The wave-particle duality should at least simultaneously give reduction and non-reduction some credence.

sooheon 8y ago
I won't argue that some phenomena may be resistant to reduction beyond human capability to reduce. My main problem with the thesis is that whatever irreducible phenomena that is, is still part of the natural, physical world. Because we lack the knowledge to fully map thoughts to underlying atomic events does not mean thoughts are suddenly supernatural and non-physical. They are a different category of physical event, perhaps. Maxwell's Demon is new to me, and I'm not quite sure how to interpret it in this context. At first read, the claim that the observing, calculating, acting Demon, manipulating a physical trapdoor is not part of the thermodynamic system seems... laughable.
- bordercases 8y ago
  > Maxwell's Demon is new to me, and I'm not quite sure how to interpret it in this context. At first read, the claim that the observing, calculating, acting Demon, manipulating a physical trapdoor is not part of the thermodynamic system seems... laughable. That's the immediate refutation a lot of people propose, but then to model that demon plus the system is to also become another demon. So you can't escape this problem as long as you are not an abstract ideal observer, which none of us are in practice. (The fact that it's laughable is correct, because it could never happen, including to us.)
- bordercases 8y ago
  > I won't argue that some phenomena may be resistant to reduction beyond human capability to reduce. My main problem with the thesis is that whatever irreducible phenomena that is, is still part of the natural, physical world. You don't have to posit the supernatural. People conflate believing in a single objective reality with having to believe in strong materialism (or worse, atomic materialism, when QM goes deeper), when all you have to do is believe that reality is consistent. You might not be able to create a total consistent model of reality, but if reality is consistent then you don't have to propose extra-physical forces due to conservation of energy or other such constraints. You can exclude contradictory hypotheses even if you can't settle on the "actual" one, even in-principle. In which case you can have models in one domain of science, and models in another domain, which may not connect with each other, but they don't have to contradict each other either, and you can do this all while not believing in the supernatural or denying an objective reality.

sooheon 8y ago

I won't argue that some phenomena may be resistant to reduction beyond human capability to reduce. My main problem with the thesis is that whatever irreducible phenomena that is, is still part of the natural, physical world. Because we lack the knowledge to fully map thoughts to underlying atomic events does not mean thoughts are suddenly supernatural and non-physical. They are a different category of physical event, perhaps. Maxwell's Demon is new to me, and I'm not quite sure how to interpret it in this context. At first read, the claim that the observing, calculating, acting Demon, manipulating a physical trapdoor is not part of the thermodynamic system seems... laughable.

bordercases 8y ago
> Maxwell's Demon is new to me, and I'm not quite sure how to interpret it in this context. At first read, the claim that the observing, calculating, acting Demon, manipulating a physical trapdoor is not part of the thermodynamic system seems... laughable. That's the immediate refutation a lot of people propose, but then to model that demon plus the system is to also become another demon. So you can't escape this problem as long as you are not an abstract ideal observer, which none of us are in practice. (The fact that it's laughable is correct, because it could never happen, including to us.)
bordercases 8y ago
> I won't argue that some phenomena may be resistant to reduction beyond human capability to reduce. My main problem with the thesis is that whatever irreducible phenomena that is, is still part of the natural, physical world. You don't have to posit the supernatural. People conflate believing in a single objective reality with having to believe in strong materialism (or worse, atomic materialism, when QM goes deeper), when all you have to do is believe that reality is consistent. You might not be able to create a total consistent model of reality, but if reality is consistent then you don't have to propose extra-physical forces due to conservation of energy or other such constraints. You can exclude contradictory hypotheses even if you can't settle on the "actual" one, even in-principle. In which case you can have models in one domain of science, and models in another domain, which may not connect with each other, but they don't have to contradict each other either, and you can do this all while not believing in the supernatural or denying an objective reality.