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What is Reductionism Anyway?

Posted on Jun 3rd, 2008 by MrTeacup : Celestial Accounts Receivable Dept. MrTeacup
If you've ever wondered what people mean when they say reductionism, read this interview with Stuart Kauffman in New Scientist.

Perhaps the purest and simplest version of reductionism was voiced in the early 19th century by the mathematician Simon Pierre Laplace. He envisioned a "demon" - an intelligence which, if supplied with all the current positions and velocities of all the particles in the universe, could, using Newton's laws, compute the entire future and past of the universe.


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Tagged with: reductionism, science

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