Your argument was not even suggestive, it was just wrong, because it ignores that a reductionist account would look at the initial conditions.
Also, my training is particle physics, so I have no problem with reductionism in general, simply that as an approach its not a great way to understand many problems, and the post I responded to didn’t seem to understand that solid state physicists use emergent as more of a term-of-art than a ‘magical term.’
I don’t think that anyone is arguing that modeling physics at a high level of abstraction is not useful. It’s just that the abstract models are computational shortcuts, and where they disagree with less abstract models, the less abstract models will be more accurate.
The point/thrust of JohnWittle’s that I’m arguing against is that the idea of emergent phenomena is inherently silly/stupid, and a ‘magical word’ to gloss over fuzzy thinking. I chose two very different systems in an attempt to show how incredibly sensitive to initial conditions physics can be, which makes the reductionist account (in many instances) the wrong approach. I apologize if this was not clear (and if you were a downvoter, I sincerely appreciate the feedback). Is my point more clear now? (I have resisted the urge to rephrase my original to try to add clarity)
I also purposely chose two systems I believe have emergent behavior (super fluid helium certainly does, biological entities/bacteria were postulated to by Laughlin). Originally I was going to say more about superfuid helium before I realized how much I was going to have to write and decided spontaneous symmetry breaking was much clearer.
It’s just that the abstract models are computational shortcuts, and where they disagree with less abstract models, the less abstract models will be more accurate.
Sure, but also its important to remember that there exist aggregate behaviors that don’t depend on the microphysics in a meaningful way (the high energy modes decouple and integrate out entirely), and as such can only be meaningfully understood in the aggregate. This is a different issue than the Newtonian physics/GR issue (Newtonian mechanics is a limit of GR, not an emergent theory based on GR, the degrees of freedom are the same).
Your argument was not even suggestive, it was just wrong, because it ignores that a reductionist account would look at the initial conditions.
I don’t think that anyone is arguing that modeling physics at a high level of abstraction is not useful. It’s just that the abstract models are computational shortcuts, and where they disagree with less abstract models, the less abstract models will be more accurate.
The point/thrust of JohnWittle’s that I’m arguing against is that the idea of emergent phenomena is inherently silly/stupid, and a ‘magical word’ to gloss over fuzzy thinking. I chose two very different systems in an attempt to show how incredibly sensitive to initial conditions physics can be, which makes the reductionist account (in many instances) the wrong approach. I apologize if this was not clear (and if you were a downvoter, I sincerely appreciate the feedback). Is my point more clear now? (I have resisted the urge to rephrase my original to try to add clarity)
I also purposely chose two systems I believe have emergent behavior (super fluid helium certainly does, biological entities/bacteria were postulated to by Laughlin). Originally I was going to say more about superfuid helium before I realized how much I was going to have to write and decided spontaneous symmetry breaking was much clearer.
Sure, but also its important to remember that there exist aggregate behaviors that don’t depend on the microphysics in a meaningful way (the high energy modes decouple and integrate out entirely), and as such can only be meaningfully understood in the aggregate. This is a different issue than the Newtonian physics/GR issue (Newtonian mechanics is a limit of GR, not an emergent theory based on GR, the degrees of freedom are the same).