Posted by Estella on September 1, 2006, at 2:12:36
In reply to Re: Biopsychosocial vs Biological Reductionism, posted by finelinebob on September 1, 2006, at 1:18:48
We might have a different world view.
I'll put consciousness to the side because that is more controversial and I don't know what I believe. Aside from that, you have different levels of explanation like this (of course I'm simplifying and leaving out a lot).
- Social
- Psychological (beliefs, desires, emotions, hopes etc)
- Biological
- Chemical
- PhysicalYou can think of these as different levels. There are different entities at each level and there are different facts (about the states of those entities) at each level. At the level of physics there are facts about what subatomic particles there are and the way in which those subatomic particles behave. Now the thought is that if we were idealised reasoners and we knew all the facts about subatomic particles and how they behave then we would be able to logically deduce what entities there is at the chemical level of explanation and how those entities behave. And if we (as ideal reasoners) were to know all the facts about the entities and behaviour of the entities at the level of chemistry then we would be able to deduce the entities and behaviour of the entities at the level of biology and so forth up the hierarchy.
Another way of saying this is that God (so to speak) didn't have to fix the physical facts on day one then the chemical facts on day two then the biological facts on day three. He just had to fix the facts at the physical level and then all the other facts thereby got fixed for free.
So...
If that is right. As a claim about the way the world is then we might be inclined to think that explanation should bottom out at the physical level as if we knew everything there was to know at the level of physics we would thereby know everything there is to know at higher levels of explanation.
You might think that the trouble is that we are not ideal reasoners and we aren't even close to knowing all the physical facts (and we probably won't get there anytime soon). As such because we have such tiny finite imperfect minds we are best to be explanatory pluralists (offering explanations at all the levels) because we are simply too stupid to make progress at the lower levels of explanation.
Or...
One might think that the levels of explanation are autonomous in the sense that you lose information when you drop from a high level to a lower level of explanation.
One way of seeing this is to note that while you can deduce chemistry from physics and while you can deduce biology from chemistry the deduction doesn't work the other way around. It is possible for there to be a world that is a duplicate of our world at the psychological level but to have a radically different chemistry. It is possible for there to be a world that is a duplicate of our world at the chemical level but to have a radically different physics. You can't make logical deductions from high levels to low levels but you can make predictions at higher levels that collapse / don't make sense at lower levels.
For example... If I tell you that I'm going to order 500 shares in general motors (psychological level) then you can predict something about my behaviour (that I'm going to order 500 shares in general motors) that can't be predicted from any other level of explanation. There are many (physically) different ways of ordering 500 shares in general motors. I could pick up the phone with my left hand or with my right hand or I could get my secretary to phone for me. I could send a fax or an email or whatever. Those are very different behaviours that are only the same kind of behaviour on one level of explanation. You can't capture the notion on a lower level. To drop to the level of physics... Loses informational content.
But...
It does seem strange that:
- The lower level facts fix the higher level facts
and
- Sometimes the higher level facts give more information than the lower level facts (as a matter of principle and this would be the case for idealised reasoners with perfect information)Or...
Am I completely nuts?
poster:Estella
thread:680731
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060825/msgs/681970.html