Eywa Exists

[Clarke]

Re: reductionism, I've got a really simple example here: pure water being wet. Water's wetness is a consequence of a whole bunch of phenomenon, like surface tension, viscosity, and density. (This becomes more obvious when you start dealing with superfluids, which have no viscosity.) However, all of those phenomenon are a consequence of exactly one thing: electromagnetism. Even the shape of the water molecule itself is a consequence of this single force. However, electromagnetism cannot be studied in any practical way by considering the water as a continuous object. It must be torn apart into its component phenomena to produce any sort of rigorous picture of its workings. That isn't to say all these "high-level" things about water don't exist, but that they are merely consequences of more fundamental interactions. The high-level phenomena can be inferred and demonstrated from the low-level fundamentals, but the reverse is AFAIK nigh-impossible. Reductionist science works, in the end, and it works far more effectively than any other method ever devised. It is not infallible, but no other system of study rivals its ability to arrive at conclusions that reflect reality.

Re: 13th century people, I'm sorry for not elaborating on what I was going for, which was your objection to the "magical" technology proposed earlier. This also links into the concept of First World Problems: there will be problems in 50, or 100, or 500 years, but they will appear inconceivably minor to us. IMO, neither of us can possibly predict what the world will be like in 50 years, let alone 100, since we will probably understate development. Look at Avatar itself: we've cracked biological engineering, we can mix human and alien genetics with impunity! ...yet, the Earth is still polluted. How? This is pretty similar to an Asimov story where a man is given a fully sentient, fully humanoid robot to operate a mechanical typewriter. Neither author caught on to the other ways that the technology, or its prerequisites, could be used, and so their worlds break down under scrutiny. Obviously, RL does not break down under scrutiny, and so it is incredibly likely that neither of us can possibly imagine the problems being faced by 2050, let alone 2150.

The 13th century people would not be entirely correct in their utopian vision of the 21st century, but they'd be largely right in that it has more freedom, more wealth, and more leisure time. (Keeping in mind that world population is 8 or so times larger than it was then) Even the predictions of the 1960s were partially right; humanoid robots don't do our work for us, but machines do. Consider this: a family car is equivalent to group of about 300 slaves, in terms of effort. That's entire villages of people, per family, (or even per individual!) just for carting us around from place to place! And we pay "them" a few hundred dollars a year, when actual humans are (in the US) paid tens of thousands of dollars a year! Imagine if you told Julius Caesar that you had 300 slaves just for carting you around. If he believed you, he'd probably think (quite accurately) that you were wealthier than the entire Roman Empire put together.

Re: holinism, what does it gain? What predictions does it make, and what solutions does it present? Looking at Gaia as a single communicative entity is completely useless if it doesn't tell us anything about it. There is (possibly) a problem with the way the world is running ATM, but reductionist science doesn't have the data to concoct a confident solution, and holistic philosophy doesn't seem to say anything other than "Leave it alone," with no reasoning behind why that would be beneficial. What is the point of holistic thinking, when reductionism will, eventually, produce a solution?