[MD] Reductionism

[Ian Glendinning]

Wandered into this thread only lately and just read it right through.
Gav said two interesting things along the way.

"Experience doesn't have to be explained", and
"Is Systems Theory a theory ?"

I tend to think of systems theory as "systems thinking" - more a way
of thinking than one particular explantory hypothesis - a way of
looking at things that need explaining rather than "an explanation".

But of course only to explain what needs explaining (for some
practical purpose). Dennett uses the expression "greedy reductionism".
The idea that reductionism is useful but can be taken too far if it
goes beyond what needs explaining, destroys it in the process. So much
of what happens happens in emergent layers (as Dave said, I think ?),
and explaining how that emergence arises has particular value, but
doesn't add anything to the layers experienced.

Regards
Ian

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 11:30 PM, david buchanan<dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Among other things, including quotes from Henry Miller and Nietzsche, Gav said:
> ...maybe we can say that relative truth is male and absolute truth is female, and maybe we can say, like Dq and sq, that they need each other - one cannot exist without the other.
>
>
> dmb says:
> Well said and right on. A pleasure to read. Thanks.
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