A better example of an anti-reductionism argument would be the behavior of supercooled helium. I am not a solid state physicist myself, but I have been told by an anti-reductionist that superfluidic helium behaves non-reductionistically. I do not know if this is true. The person also told me that solid state physicists tend to be non-reductionists. I also don’t know if that is true, but if I needed to know if reductionism were true, I would immediately go study solid state physics, since superfluidic helium seems to me to have the highest probability, out of any phenomenon I’ve observed, of being a counterexample.
This alleged person knows absolutely nothing about solid state physics, and is parroting back the opinions of other, better esteemed anti-reductionists.
To label anything that can be described by the laws of Quantum Mechanics as Anti-reductionist is so far borderline ludicrous. QM is our current best theory for how the parts in the sum-of-parts behave. The math is settled, the science is done, the rest is technological minutiae.
EDIT: I Apologise for my hyperbole.
I know that is a very extraordinary claim, and I must confess that is somewhat hyperbole.
Let me give an analogy: What we know now of solid state physics, is like knowing Hamiltonian Classical Mechanics, compared to reality being General Relativity and QFT. We know the answer to the tenth decimal place.
We have located the Hypothesis Region pretty accurately. That much I know. The Rachet of Science Turns, But Never Backwards., I am no expert in solid state physics. I am knowledgable of QM phenomena and have rewritten my intuitions thoroughly. To give an example, I actually draw little scribbles on paper of wavefunctions in 1d and 2d and try to intensely visualize fields. On the rigorous side, I try for all my life to escape the tyranny of classical notions like “points” and use more topoligical methods.
I have accepted that I live in a quantum/relativistic universe with a classical brain. And I am putting my excellent mathematical reasoning skills to work at weeding out whatever doesn’t fit.
I dream of solving the problems inherent in the Anthropic Principle one day, and I intend to make a stab at that title. But enough about me.
CONCLUSION: This person, saying “Solid State Physics does not have Reductionism Nature” is spouting semantic nonsense, as I see it.
Sure they might have a vague idea, but they are most probably Professing an argument from someone else.
That someone else has probably misunderstood what Reductionism even means. As I see it, how can Solid State Physics possibly be anything but reductionistic! It’s a really simple system compared to, say, a Brain!
It is like saying we haven’t reduced fluid flows, while looking directly at the Navier-Stokes equations. The Maths are written. The Experiments have pushed our credence to 99.5%. The rest is crunching a lot of numbers and making experiments for those pesky edge cases, you know, like Electroweak Theory was brilliantly correct and relied on Higgs and then we made the LHC to find it.
No problem; I was on the verge of calling you out as parroting the opinions and conclusions of others. The fact that their opinions and conclusions are correct enough for all practical and most impractical purposes does not excuse an appeal to authority.
A better example of an anti-reductionism argument would be the behavior of supercooled helium. I am not a solid state physicist myself, but I have been told by an anti-reductionist that superfluidic helium behaves non-reductionistically. I do not know if this is true. The person also told me that solid state physicists tend to be non-reductionists. I also don’t know if that is true, but if I needed to know if reductionism were true, I would immediately go study solid state physics, since superfluidic helium seems to me to have the highest probability, out of any phenomenon I’ve observed, of being a counterexample.
This alleged person knows absolutely nothing about solid state physics, and is parroting back the opinions of other, better esteemed anti-reductionists.
To label anything that can be described by the laws of Quantum Mechanics as Anti-reductionist is so far borderline ludicrous. QM is our current best theory for how the parts in the sum-of-parts behave. The math is settled, the science is done, the rest is technological minutiae.
EDIT: I Apologise for my hyperbole.
I know that is a very extraordinary claim, and I must confess that is somewhat hyperbole.
Let me give an analogy: What we know now of solid state physics, is like knowing Hamiltonian Classical Mechanics, compared to reality being General Relativity and QFT. We know the answer to the tenth decimal place.
We have located the Hypothesis Region pretty accurately. That much I know. The Rachet of Science Turns, But Never Backwards., I am no expert in solid state physics. I am knowledgable of QM phenomena and have rewritten my intuitions thoroughly. To give an example, I actually draw little scribbles on paper of wavefunctions in 1d and 2d and try to intensely visualize fields. On the rigorous side, I try for all my life to escape the tyranny of classical notions like “points” and use more topoligical methods.
I have accepted that I live in a quantum/relativistic universe with a classical brain. And I am putting my excellent mathematical reasoning skills to work at weeding out whatever doesn’t fit.
I dream of solving the problems inherent in the Anthropic Principle one day, and I intend to make a stab at that title. But enough about me.
CONCLUSION: This person, saying “Solid State Physics does not have Reductionism Nature” is spouting semantic nonsense, as I see it.
Sure they might have a vague idea, but they are most probably Professing an argument from someone else.
That someone else has probably misunderstood what Reductionism even means. As I see it, how can Solid State Physics possibly be anything but reductionistic! It’s a really simple system compared to, say, a Brain!
It is like saying we haven’t reduced fluid flows, while looking directly at the Navier-Stokes equations. The Maths are written. The Experiments have pushed our credence to 99.5%. The rest is crunching a lot of numbers and making experiments for those pesky edge cases, you know, like Electroweak Theory was brilliantly correct and relied on Higgs and then we made the LHC to find it.
How much do you know of solid state physics. You claim that there is noting more to learn, and I find that a very extraordinary claim.
Edited to explain my position more closely; thank you for calling me on hyperbole.
No problem; I was on the verge of calling you out as parroting the opinions and conclusions of others. The fact that their opinions and conclusions are correct enough for all practical and most impractical purposes does not excuse an appeal to authority.