> Just like you can't predict the change in pixels on a screen when some bit is flipped on the network wire. Well, you can, as in, it would be a matter of comp

> Just like you can't predict the change in pixels on a screen when some bit is flipped on the network wire. Well, you can, as in, it would be a matter of computing a whole bunch of stuff that we actually understand (algorithms, networks). It may not be feasible, but it is doable with what we know, today. Behavior, on the other hand, would depend on computing stuff we don't understand. > The scientific method has reduced a huge majority of the world (and virtually everything that was once a matter of faith) to a system of ever simpler parts. The meta-theory that everything can be reduced to simpler parts is probably one of the most solid theories in all of science. I believe that you're only considering hard science. If you consider anything that contemplates behavior (e.g. psychology, or social sciences such as economics), your claim is only partially true - reductionism has helped, of course, but not in the same way it did with hard/exact sciences. I guess Aristotle still says this better than any new explanation of holism: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts."