Every reductionist has his favorite analogy from modern science. It is most unlikely that any of these unrelated examples of successful reduction will shed light on the relation of mind to brain. Butphilosophersshare the general human weakness for explanations of what is incomprehensible in terms sui...
The former, reductionist aim can easily seem to ignore what is special about living creatures — and above all to ignore the way meaningful human experience seems to transcend the kind of lawfulness we observe in inanimate physical objects. But, on the other hand, scientists who attempt to ...
It all boils down, it seems to me, to a classical philosophical question: what does 'understanding' mean? Upon reflection, it is depressing, if not scandalous, to realize how rarely I ask myself this. As an experimentalist, I would consider most of what my lab does as descriptive; at ...
When you note that those who do not accept reductionist accounts as complete are …resist[ing], looking for mystery where it can be found, and grounding their hopes that there remains something about us unanalyzable, fundamental, mysterious, that just has to be accepted as irreducibly special...
Here is the nub of my concern. When my colleagues spoke about evidence they meant sets of numbers, and occasional comments that summed up some spurious reductionist data and had value only because we can draw pretty graphs. When I say evidence, I mean the work itself. That is where the ...
“many mathematical or philosophical concepts have no obvious tie to phenomenal concepts,” which may be true, but does not mean that those concepts are not ultimately derived from an irreducibly phenomenal consciousness. Imagining that they could be generated by the physical world is the result ...
experience or science that challenges orthodoxy or does not fit into a materialistic reductionist paradigm. We do not support every quack claim on the planet, but advocate true skepticism, objectivity, open-mindedness and fairness toward paranormal or unconventional evidence, experience or science. We ...
15 Does this undesirable scenario occur with STEGH participants? What do returning learners mean when they describe heightened awareness of cultural factors in health and health care delivery? As beneficial as the learners find the insights they derive from participation in STEGHs, the trips come ...
In addition, reductionist thinking led investigators to accept that biology could be reduced to chemistry, and this made them neglect the fundamental difference between chemical antigenicity and biological immunogenicity. As a result, they did not investigate which inherent constituents of immune systems ...
One might object that a mosquito lacks self-awareness and introspection. But does that mean a newborn human baby is not conscious? How, relative to consciousness, is that newborn different from a mosquito? Consciousness isn’t just the brain:The body shapes your sense of self | New Scient...