Posted by
Russell Standish on
Jun 18, 2007; 11:47pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Seminal-Papers-in-Complexity-tp524047p524069.html
I would contend that this criticism may well be valid for certain
forms literary criticism, but only when the author is unaware of the
precise mathematical or scientific definitions of the terms. I have
seen the terms "nonlinear", "reductionism", "emergence" and
"complexity" all abused to lend some kind of scientific credential to
a topic, when all it does is obscure the point the author was trying
to make.
When I use "emergence" (or "complexity") in a scientific paper, I
have to define exactly what I mean by these terms, precisely because
of these past abuses. For that reason, it is convenient to have a
short paper outlining thise definitions, hence "On complexity and
Emergence".
On the other hand, I needn't define nonlinearity - most of my readers
understand perfectly well what a linear function is: one that obeys
f(a*x+b*y) = a*f(x)+b*f(y)
If neither * or + are defined for your objects of discussion, you
cannot talk about (non-)linearity.
I've never really used reductionism in my published works, but where I
do, I really mean something "ignoring presence of emergent processes",
or "belief that emergence doesn't exist" or something like that. As I
say in my book "Theory of Nothing":
"Thus it appears that emergence stands in opposition to {\em
reductionism},\index{reductionism} a paradigm of understanding
something by studying its constituent parts. To someone wedded to
the notion of reductionism, emergence can appear rather mysterious
and strange.
I make these strong claims precisely so that some bright spark can
point out why they are wrong, or need nuancing. Too many people are
wishy-washy, and end up sowing confusion. That is the pomo way.
Cheers
On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 08:41:09AM -0700, Glen E. P. Ropella wrote:
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> I submit the following for criticism:
>
> It's always seemed to me that reductionism and the use of "nonlinearity"
> as a pretentious and hermetic placeholder for synergy has its roots in
> characterizing the expectations of the observer.
>
> Anti-reductionists are just as silly as reductionists when they assert
> that they have or manipulate some deep understanding of what's out there
> (onto-). We can't _reduce_ the actual world anymore than the actual
> world is "summed" or composed of actual components. It's _all_ in your
> head. None of this is real or concrete.
>
--
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