Posted by finelinebob on September 1, 2006, at 19:41:35
In reply to Re: Biopsychosocial vs Biological Reductionism » finelinebob, posted by Estella on September 1, 2006, at 2:12:36
> We might have a different world view...
>
> - Social
> - Psychological (beliefs, desires, emotions, hopes etc)
> - Biological
> - Chemical
> - PhysicalWell, I'd say that there is little difference between cultural, social and psychological other than a factor of scale or localization;but those sitting on top of the other three from a non-dualist point of view makes perfect sense.
We do differ on a few key points. If what you mean by "fact" is an indisputable truth, I'd say you can have those in logics and semantics but not in science. No scientific "truth" is indisputable, and no indisputable truth is scientific. If you take an empiricist's definition of a "fact" conforming to a statement verified by objective observation, again I would have to say you can have no truths because science is based on falsifiability and not verification, and objectivity is a fiction since all observation is theory-laden -- you cannot approach a scientific experiment without it being couched in an explanatory framework.A closely related second point is that rationality is also a fiction based on the epistemology of empiricism. But both fictions (rationality and fact) are **useful** fictions as long as you remain within the boundary conditions of science. Again, that is the essence of a model -- it is a useful fiction.
But, to continue the thought experiment and acknowledging that some "Primary Mover" started physics off on its merry way some 13.5 billion years ago...
> So...
>
> If that is right. As a claim about the way the world is then we might be inclined to think that explanation should bottom out at the physical level as if we knew everything there was to know at the level of physics we would thereby know everything there is to know at higher levels of explanation.
And assuming perfect replication and rigid determinism of a higher level by its predecessor, then yes, a theory of everything would be able to explain everything at all levels. "42" would make sense.
> Or...
>
> One might think that the levels of explanation are autonomous in the sense that you lose information when you drop from a high level to a lower level of explanation.
Which is not at all inconsistent with the bottom-up approach as long as you do not assume rigid determinism and perfect replication.Even at the level of subatomic physics, tho, we do not have these conditions. "Reality" is probablistic, not deterministic. We see things such as quantum tunneling, paired electron spin experiments that can only (now) be explained as information travelling at speeds indistinguishable from instantaneous. We have "virtual pairs" of particles and their anti-particles popping in and out of existence all the time, one consequence being the "evaporation" of black holes -- matter escaping the inescapable. As quoted before, "The world may not be as real as we think it is."
I don't know the chemical equivalents, but obviously in biology we have random mutations based on probabiltiy and by interactions with external agents (carcinogens, energetic photons).
Take it up to the cultural-social-psychological, and not only do we have misunderstandings, we have intentional differences of opinion. There is no pure social transmission of meaning if the transmitter or receiver "malfunction" or if they intend to be subversive.
We have chaos, not unfettered replication, at every level and in-between.
To make the story even more interesting, we have acheived a state where we can now turn the tables, starting with civil disorder back into antiquity. Out of such disorder came the freedom of intellect. Out of the development of such intellect, we can now alter genomes, "create" molecules that do not exist in nature, and we can even poke and prod individual atoms around to form such useful, unnatural constructs as carbon nanotubes and buckyballs, or even engage in trivial matters such as spelling out "IBM" in atoms.
What can be construed as a "loss of inforamation" may simply (lol, what a choice of word) be an indicaion of the quantum nature of "meaning" and of how chaos plays a role at all levels.
> It does seem strange that:
>
> - The lower level facts fix the higher level facts
In a probablistic view, it's not strange at all. Neither are the exceptions to that rule -- they are improbable, but not impossible.
> - Sometimes the higher level facts give more information than the lower level facts (as a matter of principle and this would be the case for idealised reasoners with perfect information)No need for idealised reasoners. Crushed rocks make a brick. Many bricks make a house. The habitation of houses by people make homes. Collections of homes make a city, and so on.
Higher-level concepts in your system exhibit a one-to-many relationship with lower-level phenomena, not a one-to-one match.
> Or...
>
> Am I completely nuts?This **is** Babble, after all. Alternative hypotheses cannot be ruled out. =^P
Getting back to models as useful fictions. Brain imaging allows for the testing and measurement of models of the mind. Some people see progress and even evidence of their usefulness increasing. Seems like they haven't reached a "critical mass" of usefulness for you. Whether the "colors" are arbitrary or not, they are simply representations of difference, and its the differences in what is being measured that provides support for one view while, perhaps, ruling out a competing view.
Modern physics began with apparatus such as Milliken's Oil Drop Experiment, but look where it is now. Comparatively, we may be back as far as Newton in terms of understanding the brain.
poster:finelinebob
thread:680731
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060901/msgs/682131.html