Molecules in motion is one thing. Pressure, temperature and volume is another. — Frederick KOH

Indeed. That's because the ascription of properties such as pressure and temperature to macroscopic systems composed of many molecules can only be performed in a restricted range of conditions near thermodynamic equilibrium (or quasi-static equilibrium -- when there is a sufficiently slow transition from one equilibrium strate to another, as occurs, e.g., within individual stages of the Carnot cycle). Furthermore, pressure and temperature states aren't determinate micro-physical states but rather broad equivalence classes of them (a point emphasized by George Ellis's work on emergence and top-down causation). They specify states that are multiply realizable. That's why specifying the temperature and pressure of a specific sample of gas enclosed in a container abstracts away from the specific states of motion of the individual molecules and only determines broad statistical properties of them.

Thus, some emergent laws, such a the ideal gas law, are idealized abstractions that do indeed govern (some features of) the behavior of real gases in restricted ranges of circumstances. But the validity of those laws jointly depends on some of the laws that govern individual molecular interactions (e.g. conservation of energy and momentum) and also on the obtaining of specific boundary conditions of the whole systems that the theorist choses to focus on for some pragmatic and/or theoretical purpose. This focus entails abstracting away from some of the irrelevant features of material constitution and enables the formulation of high-level laws (and hence of unified formal/causal explanations) that apply to several different gases.

Isn't the very idea of abstraction leaving things out? — Frederick KOH

So reductionism = abstraction? Have we changed the subject just to avoid you answering my question about a failure to be able to compute protein folding even from a complete knowledge of the local bonds in play?

And who knows whether you are defending an epistemic-strength or ontic-strength position. You are still refusing to say.

It's OK to admit to being a pragmatist on these issues you know?

Isn't the very idea of abstraction leaving things out? — Frederick KOH

One crucial non-reductionist (or pluralist) point that is often overlooked is that both bottom-up material/analytical explanations and top-down formal/functional explanations are achieved though a process of abstraction and hence both leave things out. The former leaves out irrelevant details of functional organization while the latter leaves out irrelevant details of material implementation. What it is that is relevant or irrelevant is conditioned by the pragmatic context and the interests of the theorist/scientist/engineer. None of those two modes of explanation is more fundamental than the other in an absolute sense. Both are incomplete.

So reductionism = abstraction? Have we changed the subject just to avoid you answering my question about a failure to be able to compute protein folding even from a complete knowledge of the local bonds in play? — apokrisis

Ornithologists don't expect to be able to derive everything from chemical bonds either. What's your point?

One crucial non-reductionist (or pluralist) point — Pierre-Normand

Finally...

Is this reductionist:

When Edelman says that a person cannot be reduced to molecu-
lar interactions, is he saying anything different (except in degree)
than a botanist or a meteorologist who says that a rose or a thun-
derstorm cannot be reduced to molecular interactions? It may or
may not be silly to pursue reductionist programs of research on
complicated systems that are strongly conditioned by history, like
brains or roses or thunderstorms. What is never silly is the per-
spective, provided by reductionism, that apart from historical ac-
cidents these things ultimately are the way they are because of the
fundamental principles of physics.

Ornithologists don't expect to be able to derive everything from chemical bonds either. — Frederick KOH

So what is stopping them in your view? It would be possible right?

So what is stopping them in your view? It would be possible right? — apokrisis

Using calculations by hand you can't model anything more complicated than the hydrogen atom. Computers are used for more complicated atoms. Higher than that, I defer to Weinberg:

When Edelman says that a person cannot be reduced to molecu-
lar interactions, is he saying anything different (except in degree)
than a botanist or a meteorologist who says that a rose or a thun-
derstorm cannot be reduced to molecular interactions? It may or
may not be silly to pursue reductionist programs of research on
complicated systems that are strongly conditioned by history, like
brains or roses or thunderstorms. What is never silly is the per-
spective, provided by reductionism, that apart from historical ac-
cidents these things ultimately are the way they are because of the
fundamental principles of physics.

What is never silly is the perspective, provided by reductionism, that apart from historical accidents these things ultimately are the way they are because of the
fundamental principles of physics. — Frederick KOH

So these "historical accidents", are they all material events or instead are some of them symbolically meaningful interactions?

When a protein acts as a message to a system, is that covered by Weinberg's reductionist ontology? And why would so many biologists strongly disagree? Are they just bad at reductionism/abstractionism?

Should they all defer to Weinberg. :)

Using calculations by hand you can't model anything more complicated than the hydrogen atom. Computers are used for more complicated atoms. — Frederick KOH

Huh? It doesn't matter how you do your calculations when it comes to NP completeness. This is about whether you can do them.

Finally...

Is this reductionist:

(Weinberg) "When Edelman says that a person cannot be reduced to molecu-
lar interactions, is he saying anything different (except in degree)
than a botanist or a meteorologist who says that a rose or a thun-
derstorm cannot be reduced to molecular interactions? It may or
may not be silly to pursue reductionist programs of research on
complicated systems that are strongly conditioned by history, like
brains or roses or thunderstorms. What is never silly is the per-
spective, provided by reductionism, that apart from historical ac-
cidents these things ultimately are the way they are because of the
fundamental principles of physics." — Frederick KOH

I've finished reading/re-reading Weinberg's two book chapters on reductionism a couple days ago. I also read one of Ernst Mayr's book chapter (Analysis or reductionism?, in What Makes Biology Unique: Considerations on the autonomy of a scientific discipline) in which he lays out the three forms of reductionism Weinberg refers to in Dreams of a Final Theory. But I have been busy with other things. I'll make more comments on both Weinberg and Mayr another time. I think Mayr's explanations of emergence have some problems too, though I agree with him more than I do with Weinberg.

Weinberg focuses on a specific kind of scientific explanations that purport to answer to "Why?" questions regarding scientific laws and principles from one theory, and seek to explain them with reference to another more "fundamental" theory. Explaining emergent laws with reference to laws that govern interactions between constituents of the entities that populate the ontology at the emergent level just is one case of such reductive explanations. Weinberg endorses a form of reductionism that doesn't purport to be pragmatic or methodological but rather amounts to a metaphysical claim regarding "the way the world is" empirically found to be. (In this respect, Rorty and Weinberg are at polar opposites). The way Weinberg cashes out this claim is through observing that the "arrows of explanation" embodied by his "Why?" questions (and their scientific answers) are seen to be converging towards a unique theory: quantum field theory (or some "final" theory that hopefully will unify the Standard Model of particle physics with a theory of quantum gravity).

Weinberg's denial of the autonomy of emergent domains of scientific explanation seems to rest on the belief that the affirmation of such an autonomy amounts to a denial that the laws and principles formulated at this higher-level can have any explanation. He thus views anti-reductionism, pluralism or strong emergentism as forms of obscurantism, super-naturalism or defeatism. It seems not to occur to him that "arrows of explanation" can have a genuine scientific explanatory role even when they don't tend to converge toward a unique "final" theory of everything. His affirmation of the empirical convergence of known arrows of explanation seem to rest on his favoring as more "fundamental" explanations of a reductive sort and thus his defense of metaphysical reductionism (as a statement regarding "the way the world is") ends up being circular.

What is never silly is the per-
spective, provided by reductionism, that apart from historical ac-
cidents these things ultimately are the way they are because of the
fundamental principles of physics." — Frederick KOH

And the reason that is never silly, is because God's Laws have now been replaced by The Laws of Physics, and God has become a ghost in his own machine. Amen.

Weinberg's denial of the autonomy of emergent domains of scientific explanation seems to rest on the belief that the affirmation of such an autonomy amounts to a denial that the laws and principles formulated at this higher-level can have any explanation. — Pierre-Normand

Quote him.

Weinberg endorses a form of reductionism that doesn't purport to be pragmatic or methodological but rather amounts to a metaphysical claim regarding "the way the world is" empirically found to be. — Pierre-Normand

He gave an example using chicken soup and the King's touch. Is the outright dismissal of the King's Touch metaphysics?

It seems not to occur to him that "arrows of explanation" can have a genuine scientific explanatory role even when they don't tend to converge toward a unique "final" theory of everything. — Pierre-Normand

In his texts, his actual references to other sciences and the views expressed about them contradict what you say.

When a protein acts as a message to a system, is that covered by Weinberg's reductionist ontology? — apokrisis

What is meant by covered? When a protein "acts as a message to a system" the steps can either be broken down into interactions explained by chemistry or there are people trying to do that.

Try "turning sunlight into food". Photosynthesis is one area where these steps have been explained in chemical terms.

Again, what do you mean by "covered".

In his texts, his actual references to other sciences and the views expressed about them contradict what you say. — Frederick KOH

For him merely to be making "actual references" to other sciences hardly contradicts my claim that he believes then all to be less "fundamental" than particle physics. Are you denying that he both endorses reductionism and explains his brand of reductionism as the (alleged) convergence of "Why?" explanations (i.e. "arrows of explanation") that link laws and principles from one science to another more fundamental one? If you think "the views he expresses about" other sciences contradict what I say about those views, it would be useful if you would specify what those views are and what claims of mine you take them to be contradicting.

He gave an example using chicken soup and the King's touch. Is the outright dismissal of the King's Touch metaphysics? — Frederick KOH

The dismissal of the alleged healing power of the King's Touch is premised on the lack of a plausible naturalistic explanation (including the placebo effect). Most pluralist/emergentist philosophers that I know would have no trouble dismissing the alleged healing power as a likely myth or fraud. It need not be premised on the mere lack of a reductive explanation. It is Weinberg's belief that all genuine scientific explanation is, at base, reductive (i.e. must point downwards in the general direction of the unique "theory of everything" sought after by theoretical physicists) that leads him to assume that search for non-reductive explanations must be reliant on magical thinking. Lack of reduction doesn't amount to magic.

Lack of reduction doesn't amount to magic. — Pierre-Normand

What about the chicken soup? We treat it differently from the King's Touch without having first reduced it.

he believes then all to be less "fundamental" than particle physics. — Pierre-Normand

But I was responding to this

It seems not to occur to him that "arrows of explanation" can have a genuine scientific explanatory role even when they don't tend to converge toward a unique "final" theory of everything. — Pierre-Normand

Are they equivalent?

And the reason that is never silly, is because God's Laws have now been replaced by The Laws of Physics, and God has become a ghost in his own machine. Amen. — Wayfarer

Except that scientists are the opposite of priests. The greatest honours go to the scientists who overthrow the most established "Laws". That is why that is never silly.

Is this reductionist:

'What is never silly is the perspective, provided by reductionism, that apart from historical accidents these things ultimately are the way they are because of the fundamental principles of physics. — Frederick KOH

Yes, that is reductionist, in the sense that it appeals to the laws of physics, and hence physicalism, as being the ultimate ground real nature of what there is. It essentially derived from the simplistic idea that 'all that exists is matter in motion', and that life and mind can be understood as having evolved out of these. Complexities such as organic molecules are described as 'frozen accidents', a term coined by Crick to describe the genetic code.

The problem for physicalist reductionism is, however, that the very notion of 'fundamental physics' has now become hopelessly complicated. Had there turned out to be an indivisible point-particle - an unchangeable atom - then this might not have been the case. But that hope was forever torpedoed by the uncertainty principle, which shows that what is fundamental are not particles, as such. So at that point the reductionist enterprise, in terms of physics, came unstuck. The same kind of thinking was then applied to genes, as the 'ultimate determinants' of behaviour, but that has also come unstuck, through later developments in biology itself.

My view is, there is no fundamental object of any kind, nor has science demonstrated the same. That is why science is nowadays spoken of in terms of 'fallibilism' - scientific models which approximate natural laws and phenomena, but are subject to constant revision.

scientists are the opposite of priests — Frederick KOH

Not any more, they're not. In the secular~scientific view of life, that's exactly how they function. All the blather about 'evidence' still depends on constraining the types of questions that ought to be asked, and the types of evidence that might be sought. But scientific materialism is a faux religion, or it's nothing.

That's why Weinberg didn't get more specific than "the fundamental principles of physics". There are people trying to win prizes by replacing or radically altering those principles.

Quote him. — Frederick KOH

This is a move he commonly makes, as your later chicken soup reference also illustrates. For instances, in Dreams of a Final Theory (p.62) he argues:

(Weinberg) "Finally, there is the question of emergence: is it really true that there are new kinds of laws that govern complex systems? Yes, of course, in the sense that different levels of experience call for description and analysis in different terms. The same is just as true for chemistry as for chaos. But fundamental new kinds of laws? Gleick's lynch mob provides a counterexample. We may formulate what we learn about mobs in the form of laws (such as the old saw that revolutions always eat their children), but, if we ask for an explanation of why such laws hold, we would not be very happy to be told that the laws are fundamental, without explanation in terms of anything else. Rather, we would seek a reductionist explanation precisely in terms of the psychology of individual humans. The same is true for the emergence of chaos. The exciting progress that has been made in this area in recent years has not taken the form solely of the observation of chaotic systems and the formulation of empirical laws that describe them; even more important has been the mathematical deduction of the laws governing chaos from the microscopic physical laws governing the systems that become chaotic." (My emphasis)

Notice that Weinberg again assumes that either the emergent laws must have reductive explanations in terms of deeper scientific principles that govern (in this case) the individual constituents of the high-level entities (i.e. the composite individuals picked up by the high-level "terms") or they must be believed by the strong emergentist to be governed by principles that are "fundamental" in the sense that they don't have any explanaton at all. Functional intra-level, and partly contingent historical, explanations are just ignored by Weinberg.

But Weinberg is also committing a form of projection here. He's the only one who claims that there must exist "fundamental" principles that can admit of no explanation at all. This is what he believes about his prospective "final theory". Emergentists, or pluralist anti-reductionists, need not believe (and few indeed do so believe) that there are laws at any level that are just given and that can have no explanation at all. (Though some of the boundary conditions that restrict their domains of validity may hold in some specific time and area as a matter of historical contingency, and hence need no other explanation than mention of the initial accident). Rather, it is partial autonomy of the high-level (so-called) principles that is claimed by emergentists to hold with respect to low-level laws. On the question of autonomy, as it relates to emergence, see Karen Crowther's enlightening paper 'Decoupling Emergence and Reduction in Physics', European Journal of Philosophy of Science, (2015) 5.

Not any more, they're not. — Wayfarer

The sentence after the one you quoted is the one that matters.

The greatest honours go to the scientists who overthrow the most established "Laws". — Frederick KOH

Try overthrowing the law that the most basic law is physics. Good luck with that.

What about the chicken soup? We treat it differently from the King's Touch without having first reduced it. — Frederick KOH

I already responded to this. It is the lack of confidence that there might be a naturalistic (i.e. non-supernatural) explanation of the healing power the King's Trough that undermines our faith in the genuineness of the phenomenon. In the case of the chicken soup, it is easier to imagine a naturalistic explanation. Such an explanation no doubt will make reference to some systemic effect of some ingredient in the soup on human physiology (or bacterial physiology). To assume that any such causal explanation ought to reduce to an explanation in terms of basic physico-chemical laws (let alone in terms of a "final theory" of quantum gravity) just is to beg the question against the non-reductionist. Even within the domains of chemistry and physics, there are lots of explanations of emergent phenomena that are primarily top-down (i.e. that display downward causation, multiple realizability and insensitivity to several features of material constitution, including micro-physical initial conditions).

It is the lack of confidence that there might be a naturalistic (i.e. non-supernatural) explanation of the healing power the King's Trough that undermines our faith in the genuineness of the phenomenon. — Pierre-Normand

What is behind this privileging of naturalistic explanations?

Are they equivalent? — Frederick KOH

Weinberg would seem to need to assume that there is just one unique point of convergence to all his "arrows of explanation" lest there be more than one unique "fundamental" theory. And he indeed clearly asserts there to be only one such theory. He needs this to be the case for, else, he would need to investigate more closely the nature of the necessarily non-reductive inter-theoretic relations that hold in between his several "fundamental" theories -- he would have to relax his narrow conception of "explanation" -- and the basis of his faith in reductionism would begin to unravel.

When a protein "acts as a message to a system" the steps can either be broken down into interactions explained by chemistry or there are people trying to do that. — Frederick KOH

Hah. I'm glad this turned out to be just an extended in-joke and you don't want to make any serious point.

What is behind this privileging of naturalistic explanations? — Frederick KOH

This may be because we like to disclose order in nature, and disclosing pockets of order often affords opportunities for prediction and control within the empirical/technological domains thus disclosed. This satisfies both out thirst for theoretical knowledge and our needs for security (e.g. reliably finding food in the future). What is at issue in this thread is whether naturalistic grounds for order are plural or whether there might be just one unique fundamental ground for all the areas of orderliness that empirical investigation discloses in nature. Investigation into emergent phenomena -- both within and from physical domains -- seems to reveal pluralism to more sensibly portray nature and our cognitive access to it. This finding also harmonises with what is to be found in social sciences where the phenomena are at least partially constituted by our plural human practices.

Hah. I'm glad this turned out to be just an extended in-joke and you don't want to make any serious point.

Having followed this thread from its inception, I think it's clear all he really wanted to do was take a potshot at POMO under the pretense that he was well-versed in the real, hard-stuff the frenchies are too crazed to countenance. As soon as you & Pierre stepped in, he quickly adopted the tactic of ignoring the main thrust of posts in order to feebly debate this or that tangential point (as someone may move a pawn around meaninglessly to defer checkmate)

None of which vindicates pomo (whatever he means by that) but it does reinforce my belief that many of those who are fixated on undermining it, are really just trying to reinforce their sense of being cool-headed rational straight-talkers. They're LARPing being rational, and need a Big Baddie to sustain the Drama. The whole thing falls apart when the people who actually occupy the role they're pretending to play show up.