Re: Addressing Scientific Reductionism


"Phil Roberts, Jr." philrob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
JE:-
Reduces? Since your view of "reduction" constitutes an increase
and not a decrease in complexity, how can it be argued to be a
> reduction of something?.

You're the only one who thinks a reduction achieved via an
inductive inference constitutes an increase in complexity.

JE:-
An inductive inference is made from the particular to the general, e.g. one
or two particular swans happen to be white. A scientifically valid inductive
inference can now be made that all swans are white. This induction is
massively more complex that any one particular swan or even any sub set of
swans simply because it refers to ALL swans. The usefulness of such an
induction to the sciences is quite clear because this inductive inference
provides no escape route: just one black swan refutes the induction entirely
forcing an entire rethink of the question of what is a swan. For this reason
it is misleading in the extreme to label an induction "reductive" because an
inductive inference provides the opposite event: an expansion of complexity.
Once the induction that all swans are white has been made it can be handed
over to any other mind or just a machine (independent of cultural baggage)
allowing exactly the same deduction of one swan to be made. Over time it
will become forgotten that somebody actually had to use their inductive
imagination to invent the general term "swan" just as numbers like zero
actually had to be invented along with the many more inductions that are
required just to allow me to write this.



You know more precisely because you've reduced the particulars
or individuals of a class to a class and as a result made
things a lot simpler.

JE:-
You may have made things a whole lot clearer but only because they have
become a whole lot more complex in a _testable_ way. If they became more
complex in just a non testable way you have only made thing LESS clear. Any
class is massively more complex than just any one member of that class. This
can be proven by the fact that the criteria of a class cannot be invented by
a machine. Try asking a computer to invent the class "swans". It doesn't
have a hope because it doesn't even know where to start to do anything
_outside_ of the program that runs it. OTOH provide it with a program and it
may be able to identify one swan via an analog of deductive (reductive)
reasoning. The inductive inference of what the class "swan" is defined to be
remains coded within the program allowing the machine to apply a strict
series of deductive tests (nested questions) to identify if something is a
swan or not. A mind and not just a machine is absolutely required to write
such a program.


You no longer have to be in the dark when
encountering a new member of an identified class, but can infer
all sorts of things about he/she/it, e.g., that Socrates is mortal,
that electricity is made of particles, etc.
Has anyone ever told you you have a remarkable talent for
obfiscation? :)

JE:-
I assume you meant "obfuscation". My standard reply is that JUST MAYBE, the
opposing argument is obscuring something and not myself. IOW you must always
remain skeptical of your own proposition. So how does any reasonable and
impartial observer tell who is obscuring what? My solution is to insist that
any proposition remain 100% SELF CONSISTENT. Your argument that an inductive
inference is less complex than a particular of that induced class is not
just evasive it is empirically wrong.

If you are prepared to use the example of the revised central dogma of
biochemistry at least we can compare our opposing ways of understanding this
key concept for evolutionary theory without either of us obscuring anything.
I have previously provided my interpretation so please provide yours.

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxx




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Addressing Scientific Reductionism
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    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Addressing Scientific Reductionism
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    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Addressing Scientific Reductionism
    ... This is not my understanding. ... Since your view of "reduction" constitutes an increase and not a ... Does this mean Einstein should apologize for coming up with a new induction ... comparison, that is a deduction, i.e. the working of the program itself. ...
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    ... >>Only deduction can guarantee that it always provides correct results. ... >>considered to be valid inductive inference, ... Deduction can not err, induction can err. ... > An inductive proof can be just as much of a proof as a deductive ...
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