ABOUT WHOLENESS AND REDUCTIONISM

I n t r o d u c t i o n

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I never denied that my 'wholeness' ideas are written in a vague fashion. I also

did fight against taking the reductionist model-based views as 'final', mostly as

equationally formalized and quantized. I never denied the usefulness of the

reductionist sciences, as the possibility of learning the world within our mental

capabilities and establishing a technology, yet I preferred to include a 'scientific

agnosticism' into our theoretical conclusions, citing the unknowable inter-

connections of the 'models' by influences from 'beyond their boundaries' - set

f or those 'models' (as limits for their observational domain).

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This writing is an attempt to realize the two divergent positions: the 'useful'

reductionism and the vague wholism, - the first is hardly leading to full

theoretical all-explaining knowledge, the second is (at least as of today) - not

(yet) practical in concreto. The goal is to explore whether there is - maybe -

an alternative view, a better platform, where the two may meet(? ) .

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1 Is reductionism a partner or a foe?

A brief preliminary is in order, to outline how I use here the two worldview-systems.

Wholism in my parlance refers to what many call "complexity" (theory?) - the total inter-

connectedness of the world (nature), all influencing all (two ways). I refrain from calling

it complexity, because of the word's loaded historical meanings as mentioned below.

Reductionism, however, refers to the thinking in models, cut to human observation and

closed within - topical - boundaries . The topics are cut, r e d u c e d into sizes, i.e. the

models, that fit the capabilities of the human mind. The models (wider or narrower)

are considered 'total (complete?) units', as they are handled in the sciences.

Neither of the above definitions is a perfect identification.

The objections against wholism are easy to describe: the idea of the total interactive

wholeness is new in its contemporary natural scientific view, not yet even in its infancy,

and not only are the features still to be identified, the available words to 'speak about

them' are historically loaded with content of different and misleading meanings. We

are not (yet) in the position to formulate a dictionary of the 'wholeness-speak', not that

to write a glossary to adequately define its terms. Most people call the 'wholeness'

principle - "complexity" (theory?), which then turns into the ubiquitously used image

of complicatedness, convolutedness, intricate, involved mix of components/functions,

all within the reductionistic concepts as "complex" structures/organizations.

The objections against reductionist science and technology are harder to describe:

it is not easy to fight against success. The achievements are glorious and soothing.

The weak points are well hidden: there are poorly explained (if at all) features in the

sciences, paradoxes, axioms, ambiguities are accepted, even applied gloriously.

Proponents of this mental domain (almost all of the scientists/engineers) have been

brainwashed during their studies as young, open and accepting minds, to follow the

route developed over centuries of reductionism. Then decades of successful work did

stabilize their concerning (scientific) belief system into a (mutatis mutandis)

- excuse me the expression - emotionally based "religious-like" fervor.

Mathematics is a marvel in human thinking, it is a thought-world of its own, with

different language from the quotidian parlance. It has its own 'world view' and logic.

The applyers, however, are in many cases involved in the sciences as well (or rather

vice versa), imparting a cross-fertilization of mathematics and reductionism.

The equational math is by its spirit reductionistic, using definite quantified symbols.

I would place mathematics at the "edge of wholism" where e.g. considerations of

infinitude and some more, are transgressing the reductionistic limits (e.g. in Georg

Cantor's diverse 'infinities', furthermore in calculus domains, etc.), while, on the

other side of the "edge", a mathematical quantizing is on the side of the

reductionist science, once applied to calculations in the observational sciences.

Equations support the reductionist belief system and a miraculous edifice of the

world was established as an all-interwoven quantized evidencing system in the

entire field of the physically based sciences, by using the cut-off models and their

"cut-to-exact" quantities as are measurable within the set boundaries by adequate

instruments made to facilitate such measurements.

When, however, epistemological enrichment required changing of equational

quantities, the concepts, even equations, needed refurbishing. Examples can be

found in geology, cosmology, another example is the dozen+ different theoretical

expressions for entropy over the past 2½ centuries, - then the diverse biological

platforms, the diverse evolutionary considerations, etc. etc.

The theory-laden experimenting techniques, equational reference calculations, the

theory-serving explanations are all over the reductionist domain of (the mostly

natural) sciences.

Reductionism is in my opinion a 'partner' to facilitate advancement in epistemology,

if not considered an 'all inclusive paradigm' with theoretically final understanding. It

can be a foe, if absolutized, since it pertains to the present level of our knowledge,

which is not final at all. Historical views show the epistemic enrichment over past

millennia with no sign of any completion in our knowledge, even views about the

world we live in - and

"there is plenty of room at the top" (to contrast Feynman's slogan) -

before we even approach any closeness to omniscience.

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2 The "vagueness" of wholism.

Hiding behind the novelty of the wholistic world view, the embryonic state of its

starting development is an easy cop-out to justify the vagueness of wholism-speak.

May we try to go another step forward and to get a closer look.

Inter-Influencing is the buzz-word used in wholistic thinking. Both 'limitless' and

'total'.In all ways, back and forth. A consequent realization of such circumstances is

inevitably bringing up the idea of making "grits" of the world. No limitations, no

selection, the only way to keep our sanity is a reductionistic topical modeling.

Identifying maps, territories, to cut the 'grits' by boundaries - to do exactly, what the

reductionistic sciences do.

There is a reason why I used 'influencing' and not 'interacting': the latter points to

some quantifiable activity (as in reaction?) and we know nothing of such qualifiers

at present. Wholistic influence ("qualia in complexities") is something we just

"think about", there are no detailed - discovered particularities so far.

Wholism is some qualitative marvel, to explain what we 'think' we see. We have no

knowledge of 'what' is doing it 'why' and 'how', is there some (so far undiscovered)

agency involved, or the ones we know of are involved in some way? If 'another'

agency is involved for the 'influencing', is it fueled by some internal characteristic-

clash, or an extra "force-like" motive? (I try to evade the use of the word 'energy').

The circumstances may have paramount importance on our understanding in

general. According to the 'view' we have of the world, there are 'groups' linked

together with more influence among themselves than with other groups, all the

way to an easy neglect of even recognizing those (callable: remote?) influences.

The total interconnectedness disallows 'remoteness', thinking in wholism a-spatially

and a-temporally. It also denies a topical differentiation by functional involvements

within a total unification (remember the 'grits'?), so we must look for some different

reasons.

Assuming diverse qualitative relationships among functional interconnections,

the idea comes handy to assume also a differential forcefulness of such influencing.

(I try to use words, if possible, different from the reductionist science vocabulary).

We don't (yet?) know what kind of phenomena do exist at all in this respect, we

know nothing about the nature and function of such influences, only some 'effects'

can be assigned afterwards.

It will take strenuous work to complete the wholistic view into its details.

Let us start and take it from the assumptions made in this paragraph.

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3 The (vague?) idea of a "wholistic modeling".

The world (Nature) is NOT grits. We "see" topical organization in substance, function

even thought-aspects, presumably not as our (reductionist) artifacts but as observable

features of an interrelated world. Granted: we believe (within wholism) that these

relationships extend ubiquitously all over the wholeness, yet some influences are more

discernible than are others. It seems if certain connections were "there", more natural

and stronger than others, identifying some (natural?) topical discrimination in the

totality, while others may vanish from our observation - under certain precision

level. It would be premature and probably false to jump into a physical search of

a universal new 'wholistic "IS" system' to discover its quantitative units and

establish a new - say - 'wholistic' clockwork-nature, but the idea is haunting.

Not in a quantitative way, not as an additional physical system, not as an

"'n' axis Cartesian coordinate graph", but for the time being as a qualitative

distinction between 'stronger' and 'weaker' influences of unknown qualitative

character, mainly in functional and ideational aspects.

(I let the material part slide into the scientific images of physics, for now).

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The influences are not restricted to our observational domains, they may exercise

some effect beyond (beside) our viewed world, yet have impact upon it. If such

impact(s) do reach a certain appreciable level, the composite influence can

contribute to - what is called - emergence, to things like mitosis of prokaryotes,

like fission in select radioactive nuclei, like mutations in evolution, and other

unexpected/able 'givens'. Some have been traced.

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In our (human) universe-insight we have the 3 space and 1 time dimensions and 'speak'

about more - in theoretical calculations. Nature may have more than that outside of our

understanding. It is not only the 'strength'-difference in those influences, it is also the

quality, the functional divergence, which acts in the unrestricted wholeness. Looking

at our instrumentally discernible world we find only differences in physical qualities,

discerning mental (ideational) differences may be just as vague as the wholeness-speak

- or mechanized simplifications, as are quality-value systems in AI.

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4 C o n c l u s i o n , - a wholistic "maybe":

In our nature-view we do see a rather differentiated world due to an intrinsic

(call it:) wholistic modeling by differently influential effects towards and from

aspects, (components, parts in our view), topically distinguished (in our mind),

due to the different influences (connectivity) in quality and strength, partly in

addition to our so far discovered features.

Such 'wholistic models' excel in our observation by those (observable for us)

'stronger' inter-influenced aspects, giving us a topical characterization, while

other (additional) aspects fade away. The 'wholistic models' may correspond

to Robert Rosen's 'natural systems' with the added aspect of the qualia-wise

differential effects and different strength influences.

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The "wholistic models" may serve as a rather natural basis for the

reductionistic modeling, in which case wholism and reductionism came as

close as only quantitatively different ideas.

It may also pave the way towards a unifiction with ideas e.g. of Ian Smuts et al. with the "partial-vue totals".

This writing is entirely speculative, subject to further application or rejection.

John Mikes

Madison, April 2004