DaFranker comments on Causal Reference - Less Wrong

30 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 October 2012 10:12PM

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Comment author: DaFranker 26 October 2012 05:23:33PM 0 points [-]

Heat was reduced, phlogiston was eliminated. There is heat. There is no phlogiston.

That is the reductionist account of phlogiston. The grandparent didn't claim that everyone would agree that there is a reduction of phlogiston that makes sense. The result of reduction is that phlogiston was eliminated. Which sometimes happens when you try to reduce things.

This is what the grandparent was saying. You were in agreement already.

Comment author: Peterdjones 26 October 2012 06:02:02PM *  1 point [-]

That is the reductionist account of phlogiston

It;s an emlimination. If it were a reduction, there would still be phlogiston as is there is still heat. The reductive explanation of combustion did not need phlogiston as a posit, so it was eliminated. Note the difference beteen phlogiston, a posit, and heat/combustion, which are prima-facie phenomena. Nobody was trying to reductivley explain phlogiston, they were trying to explain heat with it.

You were in agreement already.

I disagree.