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Seems to rebrand these two existing concepts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism and http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
by platz 12y ago
Seems to rebrand these two existing concepts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism (philosophers generally reject the latter, not sure about scientists regarding the former, but these are old ideas that are probably out-of-vogue)
- jmcmichael 12y agoI would call reductionism and logical positivism the baseline assumed perspective in much of science - definitely in biology, the field with which I am most familiar. So they're very much alive and well in science. As far as philosophy, the philosophers most closely associated with science and the 'New Atheists', e.g. philosophers Dennett, Churchlands, adopt more sophisticated versions of these philosophies but I'd still call them a variety of reductionist/logical positivist.
- platz 12y agoInteresting. I thought at least physicists only viewed their models constructs that have predictive capabilities, but aren't concerned whether their models actually represent reality in an objective/ontological sense (to say nothing 'meaning' in the LP sense). I'm sure there are different camps of folks out there especially in the different branches
- jmcmichael 12y agoYeah, I think researchers in physics are more open to non-reductionistic theories. For example check out constructor theory: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-meta-law-to-rule-them-all-physicists-devise-a-theory-of-everything/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-meta-law-to-rule...