Ah, Vaucanson's famous duck! Thanks, Doug.
Reductionism has had its wonderful big wins, and may continue to have
them. But much in the way of phenomena cannot be "reduced." These
are the phenomena that complexity is taking a crack at. The sciences
of complexity are barely a quarter-century old. Don't be impatient.
I am reading the new translation of "War and Peace" (highly
recommended, though the 5.5 lb book decided me to wait until I could
download it on my Kindle--but I digress). One of the fascinating
things is to watch Tolstoy struggle with the causes of war--he knows
those causes can't be reduced to the usual stuff of Napoleon
challenged and the Russians got their back up. He shows why this is
simply not so. But he lacks the tools to grapple with why wars do
happen--he cites multiple events, multiple possibilities (insofar, he
was well ahead of his time). But then as now, how do you connect
those multiple events from one level of the system up to the next? He
didn't have the concept of emergence (and we are describing phenomena
with that term, not explaining them). But he has the intelligence to
see that wars cannot be reduced to simple causes and effects.
Pamela
"People in general do not willingly read if they can have anything
else to amuse them."
Dr. Samuel Johnson
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