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From 70544.1227@CompuServe.COM Tue Jul 26 07:06:27 1994
Date: 08 May 94 15:15:04 EDT
From: Reilly Jones <70544.1227@CompuServe.COM>
Reply to: extropians@extropy.org
To: Extropians@extropy.org
Subject: SCI: Chaos, Complexity and Reductionism

Science that relys on reductionism alone is half-intelligible.  The other half
of science that completes the picture and makes it intelligible is holism.  Of
course, holism without reductionism is equally half-intelligible.

     Reductionism  <--->     Holism
       Analysis    <--->    Synthesis
         Map       <--->  Interpretation
        Known      <--->     Knower
        Being      <--->    Becoming
       Things      <--->     Motion
        Space      <--->      Time
     Description   <--->   Explanation
         etc.      <--->      etc.

Without fully utilizing both methods, science is easily led into religious
propositions such as theological creation ex nihilo theories like Big Bang
cosmologies (one-ended tunnels with quantum fuzz... Pfeh!) and intellectually
bankrupt solipsism like Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  When
scientists only aspire to describe and not to explain (or vice versa), they can
be dismissed out of hand as weakling, only half-intelligible.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Reilly Jones               |        Philosophy of Technology:
70544.1227@CompuServe.COM  |   The rational and moral foundations
                           |         of our creative drive

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