Reduction

Question 1

The de-deification of the universe

(8 points)

Answer 1

1- Atheists lump God & the gods together as science stoppers, but they are different.
2- God (Logos) is the transcendent Creator (outside of nature).
3- The gods (Eros) are found inside nature and understood to govern the processes of nature.
4- Atheists & natural philosophers say nature needs to be de-deified for science to describe its natural processes.
5- The Hebrews (Moses/Jeremiah) were always against the deification and worship of nature. It was absurd to worship nature and absurd to not worship God. Later thinkers agreed.
6- The Hebrews did not need to de-deify nature, the Greeks did.
7- Therefore, the gods are science stoppers, not God.
8. Today science re-deifies nature with creative powers - the ultimate in polytheism.

Question 2

The limits of reductionism

Answer 2

The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

Question 3

Examples of the limits of reductionism

Answer 3

1. A watch - studying the parts of a watch will not necessarily enable you to grasp how the complete watch works as an integrated whole.
2. Water - there is more to water than we can readily see by investigating separately hydrogen and oxygen.
3. The living cell - understanding the individual parts may be impossible without an understanding of the system as a whole.

Question 4

The ultimate goal of reductionism

Answer 4

The ultimate goal of reductionism is to reduce all human behavior (likes and dislikes) to physics.

Question 5

Karl Popper Quote (philosopher of science)

Answer 5

There is almost always an unresolved residue left by even the most successful attempts at reduction.

Question 6

Emergence (Definition)

Answer 6

Higher level properties arise automatically from lower-level properties without any further input of information or organization.
(Example of water)

Question 7

The problem with emergence

Answer 7

It is clearly false in general. What happens on a higher level is not completely derivable from what happens on the level beneath it.

Question 8

Examples of problems with emergence

Answer 8

A building does not emerge from the bricks nor the writing from the paper and ink without the injection of both energy and intelligent activity.

Question 9

Example of the problem of emergence with DNA and Information

Arthur Peacock, theologian and scientist

Answer 9

“In no way can the concept of “information”, the concept of conveying a message, be articulated in terms of the concepts of physics and chemistry, even though the latter can be shown to explain how the molecular machinery (DNA, RNA, and protein) operates to carry information.”