From electrons to elephants and elections : exploring the role of content and context / Shyam Wuppuluri, Ian Stewart, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wuppuluri, Shyam, editor.

Stewart, Ian, 1945- editor.

Series:

Frontiers collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy and science.

Reductionism.

Holism.

holism.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations (some color).

Place of Publication:

Cham : Springer, [2022]

Summary:

This highly interdisciplinary book, covering more than six fields, from philosophy and sciences all the way up to the humanities and with contributions from eminent authors, addresses the interplay between content and context, reductionism and holism and their meeting point: the notion of emergence. Much of todays science is reductionist (bottom-up); in other words, behaviour on one level is explained by reducing it to components on a lower level. Chemistry is reduced to atoms, ecosystems are explained in terms of DNA and proteins, etc. This approach fails quickly since we cant cannot extrapolate to the properties of atoms solely from Schrodinger's equation, nor figure out protein folding from an amino acid sequence or obtain the phenotype of an organism from its genotype. An alternative approach to this is holism (top-down). Consider an ecosystem or an organism as a whole: seek patterns on the same scale. Model a galaxy not as 400 billion-point masses (stars) but as an object in its own right with its own properties (spiral, elliptic). Or a hurricane as a structured form of moist air and water vapour. Reductionism is largely about content, whereas holistic models are more attuned to context. Reductionism (content) and holism (context) are not opposing philosophies in fact, they work best in tandem. Join us on a journey to understand the multifaceted dialectic concerning this duo and how they shape the foundations of sciences and humanities, our thoughts and, the very nature of reality itself.

Contents:

Setting the Context: Are you content in your context

The Incremental Chain of Being

Does Linguistics Need (Weak) Emergence?

Contextual Meaning and Theory Dependence

Scientific Naturalism and Its Faults

Scientific Emergentism and the Mutualist Revolution: A New Guiding Picture of Nature, New Methodologies and New Models

Causation in Buddhist Philosophy

A realistic view of causation in the real world

Where Is the Top and What Might Go Down?

Multiplicity, Logical Openness, Incompleteness, and Quasi-ness as Peculiar Non-reductionist Properties of Complexity

Micro-latency, Holism and Emergence

Enactive Realism. A first look at a new theoretical synthesis

Holism and pseudoholism

Explanatory Emergence, Metaphysical Emergence, and the Metaphysical Primacy of Physics

Contextual Emergence: Constituents, Context and Meaning

Mathematics/Theoretical Physics: Contents, Contexts, and Basics of Contextuality

Content, Context, and Naturalism in Mathematics

Shared mathematical content in the context of complex systems

United but not Uniform: Our Fecund Universe

Probability, Typicality and Emergence in Statistical Mechanics

The metal: a model for modern physics

Spacetime Emergence: Collapsing the Distinction Between Content and Context?

Topological quantum field theory and the emergence of physical space-time from geometry: new insights into the interactions between geometry and physics

The Electron And The Cosmos: From The Universe Of Fragmented Objects To The Particle-world, Leonardo Chiatti

"A novel feature of atomicity in the laws of nature" : Quantum theory against reductionism

Geometric And Exotic Contextuality In Quantum Reality

Quantum identity, content, and context: from classical to non-classical logic

Contextual Probability in Quantum Physics, Cognition, Psychology, Social Science, and Artificial Intelligence

Cognitive Science/Computer Science: Nothing will come of Everything: Software Towers and Quantum Towers

The Quantum-like Behavior of Neural Networks

Concepts, Experts, and Deep Learning

A route to intelligence: oversimplify and self-monitor

Context is King: Contextual Emergence in Network Neuroscience, Cognitive Science and Psychology

From Electrons to Elephants: Context and Consciousness

When two levels collide

Biology: Some remarks on epigenetics and causality in the biological world

Can agency be reduced to molecules?

The Epistemology of Life: Understanding living beings according to a relational ontology

Holism and Reductionism in the illness/disease debate

About Context, Fiction, and Schizophrenia

Humanities and Social Sciences: On the Explanation of Social and Societal Facts

On the irreversible journey of matter, life and human culture

Architecture and Big Data: From Scale to Capacity

Being or Tea?

Art is Critical.

Notes:

Print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: From electrons to elephants and elections.

ISBN:

9783030921927

3030921921

OCLC:

1310473328

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.