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From: geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,comp.ai,sci.bio,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence (long)
Message-ID: <1995@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Date: 11 Jan 89 14:07:31 GMT
References: <564@soleil.UUCP>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 23

In article <564@soleil.UUCP> peru@soleil.UUCP (Dave Peru) writes:
>God is still alive.  This bothers me and is why I have problems with
>reductionist thinking.  Einstein said God does not play dice, or was it God 
>that said Einstein does not play dice. 

Einstein did say "God does not play dice with the universe", and one of
his friends (I think it was Pauli) finally retorted: "When are you
going to quit telling God what to do?"
>
>Seriously, is there anyone out there who really thinks reductionism can explain
>everything there is to be explain?
>
I doubt if the human race will survive long enough to explain everything
there is to explain whatever method is used.  That isn't the point.
The point is, when dealing with complex systems, reductionism is a
necessary step if we are to understand them.  Only a first step, since
then we have to learn how to assemble the reduced parts back into a whole
again.  But it has worked splendidly in the past and there is no sign at all
that it is exhausted as a method, despite the ravings of Capra and others.
This all has nothing whatever to do with God.  If reductionism allows us
to make progress in understanding all parts of the universe we have 
heretofore investigated, why should the same method not work in the
case of the human mind?