Reductionism

[Mark Carolus]

I have a question.

 

Why do you accept reductionism exactly?

 

Stefan's daughter's lemonade stand:

the entire economy is 100% (obviously).

Stefan's daughter's lemonade stand is 0.00000000001% of that economy.

How can you accept 0.00000000001% as a good explanation for the other 99.99999999999%?

 

Pencil for a dollar.

the dollar is only 0.00000000001% of the economy.

How can you accept 0.00000000001% as a good explanation for the other 99.99999999999%?

 

I am inclined to call this phenomenon "the glass ceiling", because many people aren't able to see past the reductionist example, but..... seeing as feminazi's already use that term, i'm gonna need a better term.....

[Wesley]

I have a question.

 

Why do you accept reductionism exactly?

 

Stefan's daughter's lemonade stand:

the entire economy is 100% (obviously).

Stefan's daughter's lemonade stand is 0.00000000001% of that economy.

How can you accept 0.00000000001% as a good explanation for the other 99.99999999999%?

 

Pencil for a dollar.

the dollar is only 0.00000000001% of the economy.

How can you accept 0.00000000001% as a good explanation for the other 99.99999999999%?

 

I am inclined to call this phenomenon "the glass ceiling", because many people aren't able to see past the reductionist example, but..... seeing as feminazi's already use that term, i'm gonna need a better term.....

So what would be a better example or model? After all, the entire point of any science or social science is to attempt to come up with models and examples that represent reality.

 

Models can be replaced by better models, but rejecting a model with nothing better to offer is silly.

 

Besides this, you did not even explain what the problem with the example was or what the problem was besides to claim it is reductionist, which is true. However, unless you can demonstrate how this amount of reductionism is bad and breaks the model at some point, then for all we know the reductionism is a good thing as it makes a useable model.

 

Finally, this is somewhat hypocritical as in another thread you reduced all of capitalism to a few lines of code and then accuse others of reductionism. If you are going to criticize other theories, it is generally best to not repeat the things you are criticizing yourself.

[Mark Carolus]

The argument is not (to me at least), which is a better model and which isn't.

The argument is only that reductionism isn't a correct way to describe the entire economy.

 

I don't believe you can compare scientific reasoning (the way atoms behave under certain circumstances etc etc) with anything that involves something as complex as a human being, let alone millions or billions of human beings interacting with each other.

 

I am also not trying to offer a "better" method/model, however, a more communistic view makes just that bit more sense to me than a capitalistic one.

 

For example:

I live next to a forest.

In this forest i usually pick wood for my stove.

Now someone with more money than me (obviously), buys the forest.

Now i can't go into the forest to pick wood for my stove, because I'd be trespassing on private property, or I'd now have to pay someone for something I've always done for free.

 

I don't see how this in any way shape or form could be seen as even remotely fair, yet, the wealthy now new forest owner didn't coerce  or force me in any way right?

 

about me being a hypocrite? Well, yes, if you look at it that way, I am a hypocrite, but I pointed out that capitalism does not work because growth does not work and why growth does not work, is scientifically quantifiable, ergo it can be reductionistic.

[Cosmin]

If you are not trying to offer a better method, why bother criticizing the existing one? Also, why bring up the example with the forest when it is equally ”reductionist”? (0.0000000001% of the economy) 

[greekredemption]

This sounds like the problem of induction to me.

[Wesley]

The argument is not (to me at least), which is a better model and which isn't.

The argument is only that reductionism isn't a correct way to describe the entire economy.

 

I don't believe you can compare scientific reasoning (the way atoms behave under certain circumstances etc etc) with anything that involves something as complex as a human being, let alone millions or billions of human beings interacting with each other.

 

I am also not trying to offer a "better" method/model, however, a more communistic view makes just that bit more sense to me than a capitalistic one.

 

For example:

I live next to a forest.

In this forest i usually pick wood for my stove.

Now someone with more money than me (obviously), buys the forest.

Now i can't go into the forest to pick wood for my stove, because I'd be trespassing on private property, or I'd now have to pay someone for something I've always done for free.

 

I don't see how this in any way shape or form could be seen as even remotely fair, yet, the wealthy now new forest owner didn't coerce  or force me in any way right?

 

about me being a hypocrite? Well, yes, if you look at it that way, I am a hypocrite, but I pointed out that capitalism does not work because growth does not work and why growth does not work, is scientifically quantifiable, ergo it can be reductionistic.

1. You do not buy unowned things. This is not how it works at all. In fact, the guy collecting wood would have some sort of just claim to have homesteaded the forestry rights within a certain radius of his house.

 

2. It is not perfect or logically and always true to model human behavior in a model sense, however we still model trends to monitor behavior. Modeling and statistics are imperfect, but they allow future and trends to be predicted and estimated. If you do not have some sort of model or example, then you are just making crap up which doesn't exactly fly with a community that basis a lot of its conclusions on empiricism.

 

3. Your example is reductionist as well (the forest).

 

4. You cannot hold others to a standard and then apply arbitrary exceptions for yourself.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

As far as I remember the lemonade stand example was brought up in response to the assertion from Peter Joseph that free trade was violence. It is to illustrate that in principal, no violence is occurring in a free trade. If you scale it up to ten people trading voluntarily there's still no violence. When you scale it to 100 percent there's still no violence. The violence only enters when coercion is involved, which generally means the state.

Consider a free market of love. Call it capitalist romance. At the very simplest level two people voluntarily getting together is not an act of violence. It is a free trade of sorts. Both parties believe they're better off. No matter how many people get together voluntarily, at no point is violence occurring; even if many people suffer in this market of romance. So the "reductionist" example of two people getting together accurately demonstrates the principal. 

[Kevin Beal]

This is not an example of reductionism. I quite dislike reductionism, personally.

 

Reductionism is giving a full account of a system by looking solely at smaller subsystems. Like trying to give an account of chemistry by using only physics descriptions.

 

Rather this is the demonstration of a principle being extended to larger scopes. If it applies here, it should apply generally, is the logic. This is because humans are pretty similar in most respects and they don't suddenly become the opposite of human when you put enough of them together. What is a group but a collection of individuals?

[dsayers]

Reductionism is giving a full account of a system by looking solely at smaller subsystems.

 

Thank you for providing a frame of reference where the author did not.

 

 

As far as I remember the lemonade stand example was brought up in response to the assertion from Peter Joseph that free trade was violence.

 

My gratitude to you for clarification as well. This is the second thread he started talking about lemonade stands and pencils with no frame of reference.

 

I don't believe you can compare scientific reasoning (the way atoms behave under certain circumstances etc etc) with anything that involves something as complex as a human being, let alone millions or billions of human beings interacting with each other.

 

It's been my experience that people who exaggerate and obfuscate are looking to sell something that people wouldn't buy if they understood the simple truth. The complexity of a human being helps to explain things like why exercise leads to more efficient thinking. It does nothing to help explain why seek out that which they want or how non-violent interaction is more sustainable than violent ones.

 

First principles are a=a and b!=a. How simple can you get? Simplicity (where applicable) makes things easier to understand, more accessible to us all, and in my opinion, beautiful.