Comment by Javad Khakbaz (javad-khakbaz) on The real difference between Reductionism and Emergentism · 2022-07-18T06:34:40.294Z · LW · GW

In the 4-stage process described in the article, stage 4 (hypothesis generation) is the one that I think provides the most definitive and unbreachable difference between R and E.  The proverbial Newton's apple story offers a good example.  Millions of people had seen apples fall from trees.  But the hypothesis of gravity could only have come to being through inductive, not deductive logic.  Stages 1-3 can be, in principle, written into a computer program.  I can't imagine how a hypothesis generation machine could come up with the conclusion that Newton came up with upon witnessing the apple fall.