POLL: Realism and reductionism
post by draq · 2010-11-05T21:13:52.568Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 9 commentsContents
Defintions: What are you? None 9 comments
A second attempt.
Defintions:
universe: that which contains everything.
reality: the realm of natural phenomena.
scientific theory: a theory that identifies natural phenomena.
morality: the realm of normative rules.
normative theory: a theory that identifies normative rules.
identification: "this natural phenomenon has following properties" or "this normative rule says: ... "
What are you?
Please answer in the form of [ABC0]{4}, where 0 stands for no opinion. Feel free to add an explanation.
Example: B0BA stands for anti-realism, no opinion on values, weak ontological realism, scientific reductionism.
1A realism
Reality is external to the mind.
It is possible to evaluate which scientific theory is more correct.
1B anti-realism
Reality is external to the mind.
It is impossible to evaluate which scientific theory is more correct.
1C subjectivism
Reality is a product of the mind.
2A value realism
Morality is external to the mind.
It is possible to evaluate which normative theory is better.
2B value anti-realism
Morality is external to the mind.
It is impossible to evaluate which normative theory is better.
2C value relativism
Morality is a product of the mind.
3A strong ontological reductionism
Mental phenomena are reducible to reality and reality is reducible to mathematics.
Mathematics is the universe.
3B weak ontological reductionism
Mental phenomena are reducible to reality, but reality is not reducible to mathematics.
Reality (and mathematics) is the universe.
3C anti-reductionism
Mental phenomena are not reducible to reality and reality is not reducible to mathematics.
4A scientific reductionism
The entirety of scientific theories can be reduced to some axiomatic theories.
4B scientific anti-reductionism
The entirety of scientific theories cannot be reduced to some axiomatic theories.
New natural phenomena require new irreducible scientific theories.
9 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by JoshuaZ · 2010-11-05T21:30:33.208Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
universe: that which contains everything.
I'm not sure this is helpful. What is everything?
morality: the realm of normative rules.
This doesn't seem to help much. "Normative" almost as hard to define.
Despite these issues, I think overall this attempt is better, in that it is more intuitively obvious what you are trying to get at with different options.
comment by cousin_it · 2010-11-06T16:10:52.697Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
1A, 2C. I think these will be the most popular answers to the first two questions.
I have no idea whether 3A or 3B is correct (3C is obviously wrong though), and don't understand question 4 at all. Also, seconding JoshuaZ in the opinion that your "definitions" are just shuffling complexity from one difficult word to another, not actually defining anything.
comment by Carinthium · 2011-03-11T04:12:18.451Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
1A, 2C, 3B, 4 likely B.
comment by Alex Flint (alexflint) · 2010-11-06T10:06:24.811Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
1A, 2C, 3B
I don't know exactly what you're asking asking with (4). I think that a complete description of elementary physics might in principle be capable of predicting the result of any experiment, but I think it is an extra step to really understand e.g. evolution in terms of variation and selection.
comment by NihilCredo · 2010-11-05T23:50:20.409Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
On what sort of predictions would a strong ontological reductionist disagree with a weak one?
Also, I don't quite understand the anti-realist position.