Universal Holism and Individualized Reductionism.
When a Whole Cannot be the Sum of its Parts.
Plato, Kant, Nietsche evolving views on complex dynamic existential reality.
INTRODUCTION.
It is almost impossible for a normal healthy human being to have an opinion
without a theorizing. Regardless of his/her real intentions it implies premises
contained in an adopted frame of reference. As pointed out in another publication,
the frame of reference may either be consciously free willed or act by
subconsciously controlling the opinion as expressed in the language report. Either
way the propositioned opinion about an object or event occurrence is reported and
its credibility depends on the probable truth content of the opinion. If the report is
based on the sensory perceptual described verification of the individualized
occurrence(s) by all witnesses at all times, anywhere in mesoscopic space, then it is
likely to be accepted by many as true without further considerations. “Seeing is
believing” will guide the choice.
But when the occurrence escapes sense-phenomenal perceptual or ontological
verification/resolution then we must rely -by epistemological inferences- on the
less credible certainty of the visible consequences of the occurrence, as
linguistically reported by an observer or recorded by an instrumental measurement.
What if the individualized occurrence resist being framed/reduced into any
symbolic or sentential formalism to be linguistically reported? Fortunately we need
not worry about objects or events projecting infinitely into cosmological space ‘n’
or infinitesimally into sub Planckian micro space at either extreme of the
ontologically descriptive spectrum? Either way, logically absent the possibility of a
reductionist effort of receding infinities, the information content cannot become
directly available. The practical/empirical solution is to eliminate infinities is to
settle for approximations to a truthful reliable content by positing the reality of an
abstract transfinite space ‘n-1’. This way, the absolute, reliable truthful certainty
of anecdotal sensory evidence is sacrificed as we depart from the individualized
reductionism into the speculative uncertainty domain of an indirect universal
holism based on intuitions and the recent benefits of both new updated recorded
history and a global explosion of other informations as we map today the probable
territory of tomorrow as we look into the past for orientation. We can now benefit
from the joint merits of a ‘universal holism’ and an ‘individualized reductionism’
synthesis. Let us now examine the merits and drawbacks of this approach.
ARGUMENTATION.
A ‘Holism’ perspective tacitly implies that everything in our entire universe is
causally connected, entangled or otherwise existing as non separable entities
functioning as a unit whole. Whatever experienced occurrence that you cannot
ontologically describe you can always explain so long as your epistemological
explanatory model poem account is strictly derived from the same relevant
ontological measurements or observations when statistically correlated and then
linguistically expressed as a comprehensive new unit singularity comprising the
best of both perceptual and conceptual constitutive elements. But ‘Holism’, as
practiced by organized JudeoChrIslamic religions and other theosophies in our real
existential reality brings new contemporary issues influencing our vital decisionmaking process. Which element should we rely more on to satisfy the
bioppsychosocial (BPS) imperative for biological survival, the immediate
empirical experience or the transcendental conceptual abstraction thereof? To
follow are some of the salient issues to focus on.
Is the whole more than the sum of its constitutive parts? Are the constitutive units
static or are they dynamically interacting? If the latter, then it would be more
appropriate to restate the concept of ‘Holism’ as one where the dynamically
evolving state of the universal whole is more important than the dynamically
evolving states of its relevant constituent parts. In hybridizing the new emergent
Epistemontological singularity, which aspect should we rely more on, the
ontological scientific methodology or the epistemologically derived inferences
there from? How do we reconcile the invariant constituent unit mass particles with
the variable states of their aggregates as the controlling determinants of the overall
state of the unit ‘holistic’ whole? Let us briefly consider the merits of both aspects.
As previously suggested above both aspects have their own intrinsic merits and to
benefit from both we need to identify or invent a common denominator to both
capable of satisfying at least their necessary requirements if not their isolated
sufficiency status. If we agree on the premise of an ongoing dynamic evolution of
complex existential reality, then a consideration of ‘variable states’ is more fitting
than an ‘invariant statism’ for a critical analysis. This way we stay alive in the
present by anticipating the probable future threats to species survival based on
recurring, consistent past experiences and updated recorded historical facts, lest we
are “condemned by repeating the “Lessons of History” as author Will Durant
warned us in his now famous book. But an Epistemontological new hybrid
synthesis as a guiding singularity is a compromise between the relative certainty of
the ontological scientific methodology sense-phenomenal tools and the current
uncertainty of the epistemological tool resting on mathematical logical
probabilities, a speculative approach. Something like a re-statement of the still
raging debate on the merits of the classical ‘feet on earth’ Copenhagen classic
school and the post modern ‘flights of fancy’ school relying heavily on
symbolic/sentential reductionism many a times irrelevant to sensory ongoing real
time realities of existence, as if it could have an independent life divorced/isolated
from falsifiable environmental circumstances. We find that quantum mechanical
theory provides the current best bet to bring both extremes together as argued
extensively in our other published books. Let’s us briefly examine critically the
respective merits of the methodological tools behind epistemological ‘holism’ and
ontological ‘reductionism’ respectively.
Contrary to other commentators’opinions on how best to compare or contrast both
methodologies, this author believes that inferential abstractions are always
necessarily derived from their corresponding preceding observables, measured or
observed experiences. One cannot infer reliable absolute consequences from acts
that have not happened yet. If all complex objects must have had an origin from an
unit particulate object at the beginning, it cannot spontaneously and independently
evolve into complex structures/arrangements without a previous plan and a source
of energy to fuel the new geometrical 4-d arrangement in any spacetime
conceivable because, among other things, there is in principle no accessible
memory of preceding occurrences. Then any reliable real time, updated analysis of
both tools should start first with an examination of the general principles as they
apply to the totality of the whole complex system or apply to the individualized
structural/functioning of any of its reduced components. The proper reductionist
activity is based on the totality of the environmental circumstances influencing the
whole complex system considered as a unit and not on the sum of the applicable
characteristics of the environmental idiosyncrasies of the isolated constituent parts.
Likewise, an explanatory reductionism is metaphysical and not an observable
ontic, pragmatic category as some renowned particle physicists argue when
ignoring the evolutionary aspects of complexity as viewed by the investigator
within a valid frame of reference. See Weinberg’s 1992 justifications. This
warning is particularly so when trying to understand the super complexity of
dynamically interacting living systems at the micro or mesoscopic level of
organization (molecular, cellular, histological, organismal, societal, etc.) where
inherited and learned traits are continuously influencing each other in their
environmental space-time milieu right here on our real time city hospitals or
laboratories today where it is realistically meaningful as a first priority option.
Within those priority option guidelines we prefer to start from the general to the
particular in all cases whether at the cosmological, sub-Planckian sub-atomic
levels, mesoscopic or in between because ultimately it is all about human life and
its exclusive self consciousness capability to double up as actors/observers and
narrators of the drama of existence, as argued in our own BPS brain dynamics
model. In our opinion, it constitutes an excessive act of self indulgent behavior
when claiming exclusive validation of either a holistic or a reductionist model as
necessary and sufficient when obviously both are complementary and needed but
not sufficient in themseves. We witness this unfortunate behavior often in physics
where reductionists generalize about the resulting behavior of particulate matter
when e.g., environmentally contrived component electrons, ions or molecules
perform when condensed, frozen at sub-zero temperatures or otherwise unnatural
environments on our vital earth biosphere environmental simulations with the
intent to market their ideas as applicable to real time ongoing existential conditions
on our planet earth vital biosystem or elsewhere. Another problem we will not
discuss now is the questionable probability distribution assigned to varying
participating events. This is not meant to deny the potential transcendental value of
simulations under justifiable environmental conditions to generate various
probable formulations to explain the measured reports. The one formulation able to
produce the most future confirmations of their predictions would be the winner.
Sometimes it would be the hands-on experimentalist and materialist reductionist,
other times the arm chair holistic philosopher with the same materialist frame of
reference. The former looks at the immediate, empirical ongoing now, the latter at
the transcendental probable tomorrow scenario so valuable in anticipating and
preparing actionable strategies for probable life survival threats in the future. Both
approaches are necessary but not sufficient in themselves. Together, as a unit life
survival kit Epistemontological singularity, it is the best choice as argued by this
author in detail in many published volumes of arguments. We will briefly examine
some of those arguments to follow.
For the reasons expressed above this author finds it unnecessary and confusing to
dissect out further the metaphysical holism as an epistemological category to
distinguish alleged (but as yet unjustified) ontological, property and nomological
variations. The allegations that some physical objects carry non physical parts or
the equivalent allegation that, the whole may contain non-physical entities directly
responsible for causally efficient properties in addition to those properly attributed
to the physical particulate matter constituents; they call it ‘ontological holism’, is
incomplete. This incompleteness may have well been the reason why Ontological
Holism has been a stumbling block in explaining quantum mechanical
interpretations because, e.g., if a physical particle is not detected as traveling with a
de Broglie ‘wavicle’ it is assumed it is not there being carried by the wave. For
some it is more credible that a massless physical particle exists! Along the same
lines ‘nomological holism’ stands for behavior that can only be attributed to a nonphysical agency. These very special environmental circumstances attending these
variations need more elaboration until they become experimentally testable or at
least probable under a metaphysical logic scrutiny. However, it is fair to say that in
the ideal world of Weinberg's reductionism it is correct in insisting that it is the
ontological particulate matter, visible or not, that ultimately decides the outcome of
their reactive interaction and not the representational abstract formulation of
interpreters that drives and controls the outcome. But in the real-time world
scenario of fluctuating environmental idiosyncrasies the very same object or event
under the same environmental conditions may well elicit different occurrence
language accounts even by identical twins! So much for the importance of the
renowned narrator in dictating trend setting norms for all to follow as truths
regardless of the strict ontological correspondence to the real object in real
existence. The very same object may elicit different conceptualizations in different
qualified observers. I am reminded of Nobel Prize Niels Bohr remarks on what
today we call ‘Ontological Holism’ as it applies to Quantum Theoretical
considerations way back in 1934. While quantum mechanical phenomena can be
described or explained in purely physical terms, obviously not all participating
entities (e.g., physical particles, environmental conditions, etc.) can be
characterized as physical material objects especially when independently
characterized as to their isolate/individual structure/function and reactivity.
Consequently to characterize a ‘quantum’ object as an independently existing
object is simplistic and unnecessary. Even Bohmian Mechanics’s relatively more
recent inclusion of the corresponding fields created by the totality of physical
particles of the undivided universe that guide their particle trajectories, besides the
physical particles themselves, is incomplete, albeit being necessary… but not
sufficient because it excludes, among other things, the human being species
obvious brain limitations in the perceptual/conceptual evaluation and linguistic
characterization of existential reality as this author had abundantly analyzed in
other publications. . .
Summary and Conclusions.
The simplest way to phenomenologically describe and/or inferentially explain the
causally driven simplest possible system S with two or more participating
components, say a, b, c, is to assume the unit-size particulate matter components
may interact under clearly stated standard temperature and pressure (STP)
environmental conditions and coordinates in space time. This would be an idealist
representation of a Newtonian spatiotemporal kinematic behavior of a, b, c, ..n
particles responding to finite forces f=ma as each particle projects forward along
its trajectory. In anticipation of having to describe/explain some unexpected
experimental results or observations, we then incorporate a quantum theoretical
mathematical logic such that this system is now more adequately characterized by
a tensor-product state-vector factorizing into a vector in the Hilbert space of each
individual participant thus: Ψa, b, c, …, n ≠ Ψa ⊗ Ψb ⊗ Ψc….. Ψn. In the real
time human and earth spatio-temporal biosystem world of hands-on
experimentalists and arm-chair theorists of language reporters of the observables
results, the tensor products of the equation do not factorize out as shown in the
previous equation. No wonder the participating elements are said to be all
entangled if we imply an unreal statism instead of a a real-time complex evolving
before the scratching heads of the human practitioners and the speculators whose
access to absolute reality is denied to their physical brain processing capabilities in
both the perceptual and/or conceptual domain of discourse! No wonder we have to
settle for convenient approximations and propositional brainstorm model poems to
see it their corresponding predictions are verified in future measurements and/or
observations….. and even then it will undoubtedly change eventually with the
passage of time, not to mention the unjustifiable excesses attributable to either the
materialist physics scientific methodology ontological claims or the philosophical
methodology epistemological claims when excluding each other as the only valid
assessment of human existential reality. That is the reason why only in the ideal
world the total is not necessarily and sufficiently expressed as the sum of its
constitutive parts. This way both the ontological and epistemological views, albeit
necessary, become extreme views because of their insufficient status when taken
separately. Why not integrate the best of both into a new unit singularity, a
dynamic hybrid Epistemontological synthesis like our own biopsychosocial BPS
model of brain dynamics. This conceptualization, as spelled out in seven published
volumes, a blog, a treatise and various other publications, is still in development as
several issues remain unsolved as pointed out in our arguments above.
Reproduced in part and modified from “Treatise on the Neurophilosophy of
Consciousness.” A Multidisciplinary Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model. Trafford
Publishing, Inc. Only Reference
In Deltona, Fl. Early Spring 2014.
Dr. Angell O. de la Sierra, Esq.
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