BenLowell comments on Reductionism reading list - Less Wrong

12 Post author: lukeprog 24 June 2011 11:53PM

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Comment author: BenLowell 26 June 2011 09:15:50AM 0 points [-]

I'm really glad that I read Hayawaka's Language in Thought and Action after Eliezer's recommendations.

Physics textbooks helped me gain some insights. Reductionism is in the equations. The way that complex behavior such as masses bouncing on springs or arbitrary waves can always be broken down into sums of simpler behavior. I would look up Fourier transforms and superimposition of normal modes.

Comment author: Peterdjones 26 June 2011 11:26:03AM 0 points [-]

The way that complex behavior such as masses bouncing on springs or arbitrary waves can always be broken down into sums of simpler behavior

"Always" in textbook examples. Not always in all cases: the intractable cases don;t make it into textbooks. Physiists have written against the assumption of universal reductionism.