A non reductionist might talk about X where X is specifically defined as ‘stuff that cannot be reduced’. The reductionist hears the term X and starts to argue how it can be reduced. Point is that the non-reductionist is fundamentally talking about something different.
the solution is that one can use a on reductionist framework to consider the issue (with an associated shift in definitions of words etc) and one can use a reductionist framework or one can take a position somwhere in the middle. In my opinion the reductionist one is more useful—but if the objective is to “understand the non reducible nature of the soul” (trying to be extreme) or anything along those lines then I guess non reduction might be a way to go.
Similarly, to a non-reductionist a world which is identical but with no qualia is an interesting topic and is conceivable—to a reductionist it may be ‘inconceivable’. Just a different definition of the fairly flexible thing ‘conceivability’.
mtraven creates a good example,
it would seem mt doesn’t seem to care about reductionism. Effectively saying it achieves nothing. On the other side a reductionist would wonder what he was going to achieve via analysis of mind without any sort of reduction.
Similarly we have a semantic debate about if hands without fingers are possible—well to some people it is and some it isn’t depending on how they define hands—and whether that should or should not be the case is a pragmatic matter.
So in a fairly pure form you could have a person who denies that 2 is reducible to 1+1 and that 2 can exist without 1 - because he understands the concept in that way. Another person may say thats 2 is only 1+1 and that there is nothing theoretically interesting in the change entailed by having (1+1) appear everywhere that 2 is now.
A non reductionist might talk about X where X is specifically defined as ‘stuff that cannot be reduced’. The reductionist hears the term X and starts to argue how it can be reduced. Point is that the non-reductionist is fundamentally talking about something different.
the solution is that one can use a on reductionist framework to consider the issue (with an associated shift in definitions of words etc) and one can use a reductionist framework or one can take a position somwhere in the middle. In my opinion the reductionist one is more useful—but if the objective is to “understand the non reducible nature of the soul” (trying to be extreme) or anything along those lines then I guess non reduction might be a way to go.
Similarly, to a non-reductionist a world which is identical but with no qualia is an interesting topic and is conceivable—to a reductionist it may be ‘inconceivable’. Just a different definition of the fairly flexible thing ‘conceivability’.
mtraven creates a good example,
it would seem mt doesn’t seem to care about reductionism. Effectively saying it achieves nothing. On the other side a reductionist would wonder what he was going to achieve via analysis of mind without any sort of reduction.
Similarly we have a semantic debate about if hands without fingers are possible—well to some people it is and some it isn’t depending on how they define hands—and whether that should or should not be the case is a pragmatic matter.
So in a fairly pure form you could have a person who denies that 2 is reducible to 1+1 and that 2 can exist without 1 - because he understands the concept in that way. Another person may say thats 2 is only 1+1 and that there is nothing theoretically interesting in the change entailed by having (1+1) appear everywhere that 2 is now.