It's also a bit disappointing on account of the fact that Carroll, unlike colleagues of his like Hawking, Krauss or Weinberg, isn't utterly dismissive...
If for a theory to be fundamental means that it is universal and applies everywhere, at any time, and on every energy/spatial scale, then very few the...
No, that's exactly what I meant. The theory of the electoweak interaction (i.e. the effective quantum field theory that is found to be empirically val...
Yes. The ideal gal law is an empirical law, and so are quantum electrodynamics or quantum chromodynamics (both of the latter are effective field theor...
No, that's broadly correct. I get the "equivalence class" concept from George Ellis, mainly. (And I also homed in on it independently in a manuscript ...
Yes, for sure. But this merely amounts to material constitutive analysis; something that Ernst Mayr, for instance, readily acknowledges as an importan...
Not so far as I can see. Also, my objections can't be met with mere caveats. What comes closest to caveats in Weinberg's two texts are his acknowledge...
"The consensus of the sages — I recognized this ever more clearly — proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather t...
Both the hardware and software levels are abstracts levels. (They're akin to the levels of cell physiology and of whole organism physiology). They als...
Yes, I thing that is true also. Causal networks in complex dynamical systems can be very messy and fail to display clear cases of upward and downward ...
That would be a relevant example. We may say that the software laws govern how the computers behave, at the relevant functional level that gives meani...
It is pointless because it is impossible. It is also pointless because, even if, per impossibile, such a reductive explanation were to be achieved, it...
No, it is not possible. That's because it is proven that the high level features shared by systems that belong to the relevant equivalence class fully...
Yes, there is. I just explained it in a long message moments ago. (Well, just two short paragraphs, actually). The autonomy of the theory is demonstra...
Indeed, explanatory autonomy is the key. As I mentioned earlier, the relevant concept of (at least partial) autonomy is neatly explained in Karen Crow...
That some of the features of the theory that are explanatory fruitful do not admit of further reduction isn't a claim of ignorance. It is a positive c...
Just because a philosopher has a good scientific understanding doesn't necessarily makes her produce "inconclusive philosophy". Also, just because a s...
Just because the option of a non-reductive naturalism isn't a live option in the minds of several intellectuals (scientists and philosophers alike) do...
I guess I can agree with you that Weinberg's arguments aren't any better when construed as scientific arguments than they are when construed as philos...
I am not faulting you for failing to abandon the position that you had taken the burden to defend (and that you had straddled me with the burden of cr...
This is a mere dogmatic denial. There are many such forms of naturalism on offer (both in the philosophical literature and within ordinary scientific ...
You asked rhetorically: "How does one reject reductionism without making naturalism as vulnerable." and you seem to value highly the defense of natura...
Well, how else do you "erase" the alleged flaws of a position that you endorse other than through showing that the arguments mustered by your critics ...
If this were a thread about naturalism, then I might take that burden. But I need no produce a detailed account of the naturalism that I would feel co...
No. Quite the contrary. If we endorse naturalism then we thereby straddle ourselves with the burden of showing that anti-naturalism arguments are flaw...
Since you assumed naturalism to be roughly equivalent to reductionism, you misconstrued what my acknowledgement of naturalism (which I defined as the ...
Sorry, I misunderstood. But your argumentative strategy is so bizarre and out of this world that you are easily misunderstood. You are now arguing, ag...
You haven't stated what the flaws in my arguments were. You haven't offered any specific counter-argument. You merely complained that if they weren't ...
It is not a sound criticism of a sound argument that merely "similar" arguments can be made to support a false position. If this is the case, then you...
I have been explicitly arguing that naturalism and reductionism are not aligned positions. I've criticized Weinberg's tacit assimilation of them. I en...
Laugh and ironise all you want; it is your own refusal to engage in arguments that may lead one to conclude that you don't care about them. Although W...
Also, you seem to see the gaps that I have highlighted in Weinberg's pro-reductionism arguments to be minor defects akin to unfulfilled promissory not...
I call them bulshiting because you are characterizing them as being devised to gather approval from a jury who doesn't care one bit about their soundn...
That's rather unclear. You seem to be claiming that your construal of his argument may be defective (or intended for a jury of people who don't care a...
OK, so your view is that he's just pretending to advance rational arguments in favor of reductionism but he's merely bulshiting. He actually believes ...
If Weinberg doesn't recognize them to be defects, then what relevance does this have to your assessment of his argument? Are *you* now acknowledging t...
It didn't seem to me that Weinberg believes his own brand of 'convergence-of-explanatory-arrows' reductionism to suffer from structural defects. Did y...
Yes, because he believes naturalism (construed as the rejection of magical thinking cum super-naturalism) to entail 'reductionism' (as conceived by hi...
No. I've carefully read three book chapters and attempted enough explanations of what Weinberg's main argument is, and why I think it is unsound. My v...
You are seemingly trying to saddle with beliefs in radical relativism, magical thinking, or some such. However, just like your post-modern hero Rorty,...
Basically, all you are suggesting here is that if my epistemic powers are fallible then that entails that anything that I now believe to be true could...
They are different claims because they are making different points. Producing explanations and syntheses of Weinberg's arguments, and of my replies to...
I did it twice already. Why not produce your own paraphrase of what you take to be a valid argument that runs from chicken soup to Weinberg's style ar...
This same problem arises whenever two people who belong to a common culture disagree. How do you apply a conceptual distinction to the "conceptual sch...
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