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Reductionism — LessWrong

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Almost one year ago, in April 2007, Matthew C submitted the following suggestion for an Overcoming Bias topic: "How and why the current reigning philosophical hegemon (reductionistic materialism) is obviously correct [...], while the reigning philosophical viewpoints of all past societies and civilizations are obviously suspect—" I remember this, because I looked at the request and deemed it legitimate, but I knew I couldn't do that topic until I'd started on the Mind Projection Fallacy sequence, which wouldn't be for a while... But now it's time to begin addressing this question. And while I haven't yet come to the "materialism" issue, we can now start on "reductionism". First, let it be said that I do indeed hold that "reductionism", according to the meaning I will give for that word, is obviously correct; and to perdition with any past civilizations that disagreed. This seems like a strong statement, at least the first part of it. General Relativity seems well-supported, yet who k

x Reductionism — LessWrong Reductionism 101 Map and Territory Reductionism Truth, Semantics, & Meaning Frontpage 136 Reductionism by Eliezer Yudkowsky 16th Mar 2008 5 min read 165 136 Almost one year ago, in April 2007, Matthew C submitted the following suggestion for an Overcoming Bias topic: "How and why the current reigning philosophical hegemon (reductionistic materialism) is obviously correct [...], while the reigning philosophical viewpoints of all past societies and civilizations are obviously suspect—" I remember this, because I looked at the request and deemed it legitimate, but I kne

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