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Physics is the poster boy for reductionism, i. e. the ability to split any situation into its parts, understand those, and then reassemble a complete model that

Physics is the poster boy for reductionism, i. e. the ability to split any situation into its parts, understand those, and then reassemble a complete model that actually describes the world. Hence the jokes about spherical chickens (the approach works, but not for chickens). Physics has also taught us to expect absurdly simple laws as the inner workings of seemingly complex observations. e = mcc would feel like a cruel joke on anyone trying to grapple with how reality works pre-Newton. This mindset, and the so obvious wins of physics in its golden age (ca 1900-1970), from the atom bomb to the moon landing, also set unreasonable expectations for the other sciences. Hence, people expected no less than a cure for ageing from the unraveling of the genetic code and the decryption of the human genome. Yet, as it turns out, biology cannot be reduced in the way that physics can. Genetics is a madman’s den of complexity, nonlinearity, and unpredictability. It’s almost literally what you would expect from a few million years of Perl snippets evolving. The same is true of neuroscience, meteorology, sociology, and, to a lesser degree, chemistry.

cinquemb 8y ago
>Yet, as it turns out, biology cannot be reduced in the way that physics can. Genetics is a madman’s den of complexity, nonlinearity, and unpredictability. It’s almost literally what you would expect from a few million years of Perl snippets evolving. The same is true of neuroscience, meteorology, sociology, and, to a lesser degree, chemistry. I would say that we cannot to sufficient degree today (the 0 to 1) that people are expecting from the endless hype, but the mathematics used to describe/locate/correlate brain activity (LCMV beamforming + DSP + MCMC priors), and speeding of the design process of molten salts are getting a lot better/more accessible over time (relying on mathematics from local spin density approximations + gradient density correction theories + UNIFAC).
denzil_correa 8y ago
> Yet, as it turns out, biology cannot be reduced in the way that physics can Most "systems" we have (including physics) are complex, non-linear and dynamic [0]. Some of them are relatively less complex than the others but they are still complex nonetheless. [0] https://www.art-sciencefactory.com/complexity-map_feb09.html https://www.art-sciencefactory.com/complexity-map_feb09.html
wisty 8y ago
But is there a better way to understand things?
Frost1x 8y ago
Some of that larger scale complexity may be due to irreducable emergent relationships that reductionism alone can't explain without essentially simulating those reductionist relationships to the scale you need from the ground up (which defeats some of the goals of reductionism). You may need perfect information in order to fully simulate such systems (a snapshot of all initial conditions and perfect knowledge of physical laws). This may be the case for many scales of relationships we're interested in. Current reductionist theories can't tell me if I'm going to have coffee tomorrow morning. I don't expect them to either, yet they still have very useful purposes. They may never be able to tell me if I have coffee tomorrow and I'm fine with that (maybe due to error propagation inherent in quantum mechanical principles or the need for say emergent models).

cinquemb 8y ago

>Yet, as it turns out, biology cannot be reduced in the way that physics can. Genetics is a madman’s den of complexity, nonlinearity, and unpredictability. It’s almost literally what you would expect from a few million years of Perl snippets evolving. The same is true of neuroscience, meteorology, sociology, and, to a lesser degree, chemistry. I would say that we cannot to sufficient degree today (the 0 to 1) that people are expecting from the endless hype, but the mathematics used to describe/locate/correlate brain activity (LCMV beamforming + DSP + MCMC priors), and speeding of the design process of molten salts are getting a lot better/more accessible over time (relying on mathematics from local spin density approximations + gradient density correction theories + UNIFAC).

denzil_correa 8y ago

> Yet, as it turns out, biology cannot be reduced in the way that physics can Most "systems" we have (including physics) are complex, non-linear and dynamic [0]. Some of them are relatively less complex than the others but they are still complex nonetheless. [0] https://www.art-sciencefactory.com/complexity-map_feb09.html https://www.art-sciencefactory.com/complexity-map_feb09.html

wisty 8y ago

But is there a better way to understand things?

Frost1x 8y ago

Some of that larger scale complexity may be due to irreducable emergent relationships that reductionism alone can't explain without essentially simulating those reductionist relationships to the scale you need from the ground up (which defeats some of the goals of reductionism). You may need perfect information in order to fully simulate such systems (a snapshot of all initial conditions and perfect knowledge of physical laws). This may be the case for many scales of relationships we're interested in. Current reductionist theories can't tell me if I'm going to have coffee tomorrow morning. I don't expect them to either, yet they still have very useful purposes. They may never be able to tell me if I have coffee tomorrow and I'm fine with that (maybe due to error propagation inherent in quantum mechanical principles or the need for say emergent models).