Since Heisenberg and Gödel fundamentally undermined the hubris of reductionism...?

Question

Why do people still behave as if reductionism were a coherent description of the world, and berate believers for their irrationality?

How long can a reductionist tread water in the quantum ocean?

Reductionistic, mechanistic materialism.

Copenhagen is only one of many models, and far from established. Do we then have "faith" in Copenhagen, so as to keep our a priori assumptions intact?

Leviathan -- I'm asking the questions that eat at my brain. I ask them here because I know there are folks like you to answer them and keep me thinking.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/9703/9703089.pdf

Answer 1

What Heisenburg and Godel removed, Copenhagen restored.

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Copenhagen is the only one currently testable and it has so far not been shown to be false. As such, it passes the requirements of a scientific theory. I never said "What Heisenburg and Godel removed, Copenhagen restored forever." Get some of the other interpretations testable and you may be able to have a new physicist make me say, "What Heisenburg and Godel removed, Copenhagen restored, and Cool-last-name ended forever."

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ACKTHP! Wow, okay, I somehow got the wrong name associated with many worlds. It was Many Worlds to which I was refering, not CCC. CORRECTION:

What Heisenburg and Godel removed, EVERETT restored.

I am not, however, saying, that I could not be made to say, "What Heisenburg and Godel removed, Everett restored, and Cool-last-name ended forever."

Many thanks to Leviathan's answer for pointing out the mistake in my head.

Answer 2

Which of the many kinds of reductionism are you talking about here? Without context, this question doesn't make any sense.

Okay, in your additional comments you seem to equate reductionism with materialism. They're not the same thing, and of course materialism is not only a coherent description of the world, it's the _only_ coherent description of the world. Put Heisenberg and Godel aside, and read Gilbert Ryle and Daniel Dennett.

You're seeming to imply that Heisenberg and Godel have made the notion of irrationality irrelevant. That's not the case: the fundamentals of logic certainly still apply, at least to the kinds of questions that most of us are asking and answering.

I don't think that irrationality is the most important reason why believers are wrong - I think that they can make their belief systems perfectly coherent, and those belief systems will still be false. But you seem to suggest that even if they ARE incoherent and irrational, that's not an issue anymore because of what Heisenberg and Godel found. I think that's simply false.

Answer 3

As far as I'm cocncerned, reductionismi is valid in a given situation unless problems with it are demonstrated either practically or theoretically. Generally speaking, if an experiment is properly designed, reductionism is not an issue.

This is the idea behind peer review and repeatability in the scientific model. There are many cases where conclusions based on field observations have been invalidated by the larger community due to problems in the observational method.

Answer 4

Yes you know a lot of big words but you do not know how to put them together coherently.

Reductionism is not 'hubristic' it seeks to explain phenomena at a suitable level. If you ask what a car is for clearly it is to move people from place to place, a holistic response, but if you ask how it works you can reduce that bit by bit until you get down to chemical reactions and atomic forces. At every level there is an appropriate 'reductionist' response.

Accusing people of reductionism is a lazy intellectual prejudice.
And it has nothing to do with belief or otherwise.

Answer 5

Hubris (not hubris pride) is inflated pride or arrogance. It's the sort of pride that really annoys others! When you see it in the movies, it's usually just before that person slips on a banana skin or falls down a manhole. Then it can lead to schadenfreude...

Answer 6

I prefer Everett's many worlds interpretation which David Deutsch enthusiastically subscribes to.

I must say again though this is way off topic, ok it sounds very impressive and since I love the subject I know what you're talking about but this is the wrong room for it.

You normally contribute quite positively, why all these off topic questions to show off your knowledge of the latest book you're reading?

Answer 7

Adrian Kent's paper "Against Many-Worlds Interpretations" that you post has some misinterpretations Of MWI due to the fact it does not consider the observers perspective.

Read the refutation below:

Answer 8

I don't know, but could you tell me how you get those two little dots over the 'o' in Godel? I can't find anything like that on my keyboard.

I ask: Did they really?

To answer: I repeat, I do not know. But! It seems to me that many people have not reduced things to the point of facing or contacting God in simplicity; for it is God that remains the one true but unprovable statement.

Answer 9

Same reason they dismiss the Ontological argument as "a priori" instead of actually showing where the modal logic is flawed.

Either zero seconds, or infinitely.

Answer 10

So long as they can make arguments that sound good. Truth is not as important as thought control.