Scientists have argued .for independent higher level laws.

You have tried to argue that supernaturalism fails to answer any question by extrapolation from one example, where naturalism does well. The supernaturalist could likewise cherry-pick examples.

Adopting naturalism leaves a lot of questions unanswered; likewise adopting reductionism. One issue you haven't touched on is whether there is always a reductive relation between causal relations on different levels, or whether there can be independent laws at difference levels.

Isn't there still an asymmetry, in that all brains are made of atoms, but few atoms are part of brains, etc? Basically in some sense the higher levels are more rare and fragile than the lower levels.

I really like the imagery in your explanation, but I am not entirely clear on what the golden threads symbolize here. Would it be fair to say that the golden threads are the explanations of how a law or model on a lower level of abstraction causes the observations on a higher level?

Also, I don't really think you could deduce the entire structure of the blue line given by any one point as you seem to imply.

If you are given the physics of a universe, there might be several possible types of physiology, and for every such physiology there might be several different types of neural circuitry. Similarly you could say that there are still some degrees of freedom left over when some arbitrary psychology is given; it might be possible to have human-like cognition within the framework of purely newtonian physics, or we might be able to have a mind with the same morality but vastly different circuitry.

Of course you gain information about the entire blue line when you are given a single point, but it does not seem sufficient for crafting a complete model to know a lot about, say, the moral values of humans or the mental states of earthworms.

Your post is an illuminating attempt to explicate some usually implicit concepts.

I sort of agree with your first diagram, that it is only human thinking that overlays a direction, or any kind of linkage, on the human-made collection of abstractions. But you lose me after that.

David Deutsch convinced me that even this was a mistake. A mind of arbitrary power, given only the bottom row, could deduce all the others—granted.

This is a highly contentious speculation (Deutsch, like Penrose, is fond of them), and I am not aware of any experimental evidence for it, so I refuse to grant it until I see some. Well, I suppose there is a tiny bit of it, where advances in physics let people design new chemical processes, or when understanding biology better lets us predict some behavior patterns.

I am far more comfortable with the more pedestrian definition of reductionism, where the arrows of human analysis of these abstractions point downward, and the secondary arrows of synthesis point upward, together forming "explanations", and, if we are lucky, testable predictions, when your secondary upward arrows lead to something not yet observed.

I don't understand your description of the "causation" meta-abstraction. "Meta" because it seems to connect towers of abstractions together somehow. One hint is that you describe it by "how" instead of "what", and, if I cut through your gratuitous use of pathos and evocative imagery, you seem to say that both abstraction towers and meta-abstraction connections between the abstraction towers are required for robust knowledge.

Furthermore, you seem to describe the breaks in your [what x how] mental framework as supernaturalism, which makes sense in the context, I suppose.

this is silly. Good is a quite useful concept that easily stretches to cover entities with different preferences, but even if it does not, it's STILL meaningful, and your clippy example shows us exactly why. The meaning of clipful, something like "causes there to be more paperclips" or whatever, is perfectly clear to if not really valued by humankind.

I don't really know anything about the Tyvar of Arlos, so I'm pretty confused on this front, but I'm fairly sure you're relating a Talmudic anecdote, not a Zen one ;-). "Forbidden, permissible, laudable, or obligatory" says to me that we're contemplating halachah.

How is this a failure of imagination? Why is the question parochial?

A koan:

A monk came to Master Banzen and asked, "What can be said of universal moral law?"

Master Banzen replied, "Among the Tyvari of Arlos, all know that borlitude is highly frumful. For a Human of Earth, is quambling borl forbidden, permissible, laudable or obligatory?"

The monk replied, "Mu."

Master Banzen continued, "Among the Humans of Earth, all know that friendship is highly good. For a Tyvar of Arlos, is making friends forbidden, permissible, laudable or obligatory?"

The monk replied, "Mu," and asked no more.

Qi's Commentary: The monk's failure was one of imagination. His question was not foolish, but it was parochial.

Last week, after a lot of thought and help from LessWrong, I finally stopped believing in god and dropped my last remnants of Catholicism. It is turned out to be a huge relief, though coping with some of the consequences and realizations that come with atheism has been a little difficult.

Do any of you have any tips you noticed about yourself or others after just leaving religion? I've noticed a few small habits I need to get rid of, but I am worried I'm missing larger, more important ones.

Are there any particular posts I should skip ahead and read? I am currently at the beginning of reductionism. Are their any beliefs you've noticed ex-catholics holding that they don't realize are obviously part of their religion? I do not have any one immediately around me I can ask, so I am very grateful for any input. Thank you!