(January 24, 2014 at 10:53 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:(January 24, 2014 at 9:27 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: What IS the difference between a good reductionist and a greedy reductionist? That's a new one to me.
First you need to understand the difference between cranes and skyhooks. All subsequent quotes are taken from Dan Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea:
"Cranes can do the lifting work our imaginary skyhooks might do, and they do it in an honest, non-question-begging fashion. They are expensive, however. They have to be designed and built, from everyday parts already on hand, and they have to be located on a firm base of existing ground. Cranes are no less excellent as lifters, and they have the decided advantage of being real."
Now you might have already deduced what a skyhook is:
"An imaginary contrivance for attachment to the sky; an imaginary means of suspension in the sky."
Dennett goes on to write: "Greedy reductionists think that everything can be explained without cranes. Good reductionists think that everything can be explained without skyhooks." Furthermore, good reductionism "is simply the commitment to non-question-begging science without any cheating or embracing mysteries or miracles at the outset."
Too bad Dennett doesn't follow his own advice.
