On 17 Sep, 18:52, Evgenii Rudnyi <[email protected]> wrote: > on 17.09.2010 14:33 1Z said the following: > > > > > On 26 Aug, 17:37, David Nyman<[email protected]> wrote: > > ... > > >> 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 > > The next citation by Robert B. Laughlin (Nobel laureate in physics) > could be of interest here: > > http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2010/08/matter-and-little-ghosts.html > > "By the most important effect of phase organisation is to cause objects > to exist. This point is subtle and easily overlooked, since we are > accustomed to thinking about solidification in terms of packing of > Newtonian spheres. Atoms are not Newtonian spheres, however, but > ethereal quantum-mechanical entities lacking that most central of all > properties of an object an identifiable position. This is why attempts > to describe free atoms in Newtonian terms always result in nonsense > statements such as their being neither here nor there but simultaneously > everywhere. It is aggregation into large objects that makes a Newtonian > description of the atoms meaningful, not the reverse. One might compare > this phenomenon with a yet-to-be-filmed Stephen Spilberg movie in which > a huge number of little ghosts lock arms and, in doing so, become > corporeal." > > Evgenii
Physics may well be less reductionist than the reductionism of the philosophers. But the reductionism of the philosophers still does not entail elimination -- 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.
