On 17 September 2010 13:33, 1Z <[email protected]> wrote: > Compounds aren't postulated as some separate set of entities--they > are just set theoretic constructs put of what does exsit. H2O is not > distinct from the two H's and the O.
That's exactly my point. Think about it. David > > > On 26 Aug, 17:37, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I should stress, again, I'm not personally committed to this view - it >> seems indeed highly problematic - but it is what the recipe says. >> Now, just to emphasise the point, when I say it's a hard thing to do >> this imaginatively, I mean that it isn't permissible to "look back" >> from this reductionist-god's eye view and continue to conjure familiar >> composite entities from the conjectural base components, because >> reductionism is a commitment to the proposition that these don't >> exist. > > not at all. reductionism is a commitment to the idea that > all higher level entities are compounds and nothing but compounds, > wholes > which are exactly the sums of their parts. > > >>Whatever composite categories we might be tempted to have >> recourse to - you know: molecules, cells, bodies, planets, ideas, >> explanations, theories, the whole ball of wax - none of these are >> available from this perspective. Don't need them. More rigorously, >> they *must not be invoked* because they *do not exist*. They don't >> need to exist, because the machine doesn't need them to carry all the >> load and do all the work. > > OTOH, they must exist because if you have two hydrogens and an oxygen, > you inevitably have the compound H2O. You also have many other > compounds which are not > dreamt of in our philosophy. the set of compounds is basically the > powerset of the set of basic entities. there may not be any objective > facts about what is a "true" compound, but the powerset > unproblematically includes everything we conventionally regard as a > compound as a powerset > >> Now, many people might be prompted to object at this point "that's not >> reducing, that's eliminating" as though these terms could be kept >> distinct. But I'm arguing that reductionism, consistently applied, is >> inescapably eliminative. The hypothesis was that base-level events >> are self-sufficient and consequently must be granted metaphysical (and >> hence "physical") reality. Nothing else is required to explain why >> the machine exists and works, so nothing else need - or indeed can non- >> question-beggingly - be postulated. > > Compounds aren't postulated as some separate set of entities--they > are just set theoretic constructs put of what does exsit. H2O is not > distinct from the two H's and the O. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
