Thinking Beyond Reductionism
The strategy of physics called reductionism has been one of the most powerful tools in the history of science. What is reductionism? How does it work? Lawrence Krauss1993 explains:
A physicist, an engineer, and a psychologist are called in as consultants to a dairy farm whose production has been below par. Each is given time to inspect the details of the operation before making a report.
The first to be called is the engineer, who states: “The size of the stalls for the cattle should be decreased. Efficiency could be improved if the cows were more closely packed, with a net allotment of 275 cubic feet per cow. Also, the diameter of the milking tubes should be increased by 4 percent to allow for a greater average flow rate during the milking periods”.
The next to report is the psychologist, who proposes: “The inside of the barn should be painted green. This is a more mellow color than brown and should help induce greater milk flow. Also, more trees should be planted in the fields to add diversity to the scenery for the cattle during grazing, to reduce boredom”.
Finally, the physicist is called upon. He asks for a blackboard and then draws a circle. He begins: “Assume the cow is a sphere....”.
This old joke, if not very funny, does illustrate how—at least metaphorically—physicists picture the world. The set of tools physicists have to describe nature is limited. Most of the modern theories you read about began life as simple models by physicists who didn’t know how else to start to solve a problem. These simple little models are usually based on even simpler little models, and so on, because the class of things that we do know how to solve exactly can be counted on the fingers of one, maybe two, hands.
I like the cow joke because it provides an allegory for thinking simply about the world, and it allows me to jump right in to an idea that doesn’t get written about too much, but that is essential for the everyday workings of science: Before doing anything else, abstract out all irrelevant details!”
Reductionism means to reduce the problem being studied down to its component ‘parts’. Then by understanding the behavior of the ‘parts’, you can assemble an understanding of the behavior of the ‘whole’. Historically science has divided Nature into ‘parts’ in order to study natural phenomena. Some of these ‘parts’—light, particles, atoms, molecules, plants, animals, and humans—form the focus for the classical sciences—optics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and sociology.
But, Universe is process rather than structure as will be explained more fully in the next chapter. What classical science has called ‘parts’ of the structure are in fact ‘wholes’ or stages of process. We humans will need to revise all our sciences to bring them up to date with Universe 2002—our most current model of Nature.
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Why GAIA needs a Brain
As a physician I have attended patients who were brain dead. Some of these individuals were young. Their bodys worked quite well. They breathed. Their hearts beat. Their metabolism keep their cells in perfect homestasis. The nurses provided water and calories with feeding tubes. Some survived for years in this state. One could argue that they had no need for neurons either. As a biologist and physician, I am very impressed with the human body. It is an amazing and powerful system even without neurons. But without neurons, there is no music, no art, no poetry, no science, and no knowing. I would argue that the human body although still magnificent is much less than human without neurons.
I absolutely agree that present humanity has very little to offer GAIA. Present humanity is made up of adversary humanity that believes success requires someone to lose, and neutral humanity that believes everything is only a product to be offered for sale, and that all problems can be solved with money.
However, a future humanity -- a synergic humanity -- committed to co-Operation, viewing itself as part of LIFE, with a responsibilty to all LIFE and to EARTH could be of great value to GAIA.
Yes, as previously written here, we could protect GAIA from a comet. We could also clone and replace important, but lost species of plants and animals. We could begin protecting GAIA's ecosystems instead of exploiting or ignoring them. In fact, we haven't even begun to imagine the good we could do if we simply committed to helping Nature.
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