Questions regarding possibility , necessity, laws of nature and scientific reductionism

[SweetSorrowBitter]

Greetings everyone. I'm a 19 y/o High school graduate and a layman in philosophy who has had a strict materialist / physicalist viewpoint in life.However recently I'm having a crisis of ideology and questioning weather this view is valid or not , I had the view that everything in theory is reducible to physics and that everything is matter and energy and In principle everything is changeable and knowable regarding biology and chemistry. Recently I came across emergentism , holism and complexity theory. Which is making me confused.The statement that the sum of parts can't explain the whole and that higher order phenomenon even in principle can't be reduced to physics is quite disturbing to me and besides that what confuses me the most is the distinction between laws of nature and scientific laws. My questions regarding this specific problem are :

1 Why can't laws of nature and other fields be reduced to physics alone ?

2 Can fields other than physics or physical sciences like biology , neuroscience and chemistry and other social sciences also have their own distinct immutable laws / exceptionless regularities , what is the purpose of laws in those fields are they ultimately describing physical limits in a biological context ?

3 What is a better field to know what is possible In our world ? Physics or philosophy ? If other fields like chemistry and biology etc have their own laws and / or can't be reducible to physics then aren't statements like (human aging immortality isn't physically impossible) or (uncooking a cooked egg isn't physically impossible) redundant ? Since physical possibility doesn't matter.
Furthermore does the fundamental possibility of something (supposing we know something isn't fundamentally impossible in that there's nothing stopping it from being possible.) Imply it can be practically possible as well , would there be any other limitations and could those unlike immutable laws be overcome or would they also have a law-like behaviour ?

As for the laws of nature themselves :

What exactly is the difference between the necessitarian and regularist account , correct me if I'm wrong. necessitarian account states that laws are necessary to exist but regularised pose that laws aren't necessary to exist and they just are by chance and why do regularists. Another difference is that necessitarians hold that there are only a finite set of laws meanwhile regularists state that there are multiple and maybe infinite laws and regularists treat special science laws as fundamental too. Is this the main difference ?
And do regularists and necceditarians both view laws of nature as immutable absolutes ?
And is it possible to know what is achievable or not in this world if it is this complex and confusing ?

[Alias]

1 Why can't laws of nature and other fields be reduced to physics alone ?

They can, but it would be too long and complicated to do the reducing for every example.

2 Can fields other than physics or physical sciences like biology , neuroscience and chemistry and other social sciences also have their own distinct immutable laws / exceptionless regularities , what is the purpose of laws in those fields are they ultimately describing physical limits in a biological context ?

No, it's just easier to understand and maniplate aggregate physical laws in groupings of specialized function.

3 What is a better field to know what is possible In our world ? Physics or philosophy ?

Yes. Also music, food preparation and human reproduction.

[SweetSorrowBitter]

1 Why can't laws of nature and other fields be reduced to physics alone ?

They can, but it would be too long and complicated to do the reducing for every example.

2 Can fields other than physics or physical sciences like biology , neuroscience and chemistry and other social sciences also have their own distinct immutable laws / exceptionless regularities , what is the purpose of laws in those fields are they ultimately describing physical limits in a biological context ?

No, it's just easier to understand and maniplate aggregate physical laws in groupings of specialized function.

3 What is a better field to know what is possible In our world ? Physics or philosophy ?

Yes. Also music, food preparation and human reproduction.

Would the response to the second question be that the laws in those special sciences represent physical limits in the biological context or biological in the physical context ?

[Steve3007]

1 Why can't laws of nature and other fields be reduced to physics alone ?

As Alias said, even if they can, there's the issue of complexity. Complexity isn't just a technical issue, to be overcome with technological and/or calculation improvements, like breaking the sound barrier. It's a more fundamental issue, conceptually closer to breaking the light barrier. Even though in principle it's possible to say that all of the complex diversity of the universe emerges from simple laws of physics, in practice if the computation time required to demonstrate that emergence tends to infinity then the principle is arguably meaningless.

Consider this example: In the foyer of the university physics department where I studied years ago there was a thing called a chaotic pendulum. It was just a system of three metal bars connected together by smooth bearings. You'd set it going and it would twist and turn in chaotic and unpredictable ways. But still predictable in principle of course, just like a simple pendulum. But the movements were so sensitive to the precise details of initial conditions that the following can be calculated to be true: If there were two occasions when it was started in precisely the same way, with precisely the same surrounding conditions, except that in one case the only difference was the presence of a single raindrop half a mile away, the gravitational effect of that raindrop would be enough to completely change the motion within 20 minutes.

So saying that all of nature can be reduced to the laws of physics is like asking a physicist to use the subject to try to predict the outcome of a horse race. It can never work. You'll just hear the physicist muttering "OK, let's assume the horse is spherical and it's in a vacuum...".

[Gertie]

1 Why can't laws of nature and other fields be reduced to physics alone ?

As Alias said, even if they can, there's the issue of complexity. Complexity isn't just a technical issue, to be overcome with technological and/or calculation improvements, like breaking the sound barrier. It's a more fundamental issue, conceptually closer to breaking the light barrier. Even though in principle it's possible to say that all of the complex diversity of the universe emerges from simple laws of physics, in practice if the computation time required to demonstrate that emergence tends to infinity then the principle is arguably meaningless.

Consider this example: In the foyer of the university physics department where I studied years ago there was a thing called a chaotic pendulum. It was just a system of three metal bars connected together by smooth bearings. You'd set it going and it would twist and turn in chaotic and unpredictable ways. But still predictable in principle of course, just like a simple pendulum. But the movements were so sensitive to the precise details of initial conditions that the following can be calculated to be true: If there were two occasions when it was started in precisely the same way, with precisely the same surrounding conditions, except that in one case the only difference was the presence of a single raindrop half a mile away, the gravitational effect of that raindrop would be enough to completely change the motion within 20 minutes.

So saying that all of nature can be reduced to the laws of physics is like asking a physicist to use the subject to try to predict the outcome of a horse race. It can never work. You'll just hear the physicist muttering "OK, let's assume the horse is spherical and it's in a vacuum...".

To clarify Steve -

that's still a problem of practicality tho, rather than an in principle reason to say physics is not in reality reducible to the tiniest bits of stuff being moved about by the 4 physical forces (gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism)?

[Gertie]

And welcome SSB - good question!

[Atla]

Greetings everyone. I'm a 19 y/o High school graduate and a layman in philosophy who has had a strict materialist / physicalist viewpoint in life.However recently I'm having a crisis of ideology and questioning weather this view is valid or not , I had the view that everything in theory is reducible to physics and that everything is matter and energy and In principle everything is changeable and knowable regarding biology and chemistry. Recently I came across emergentism , holism and complexity theory. Which is making me confused.The statement that the sum of parts can't explain the whole and that higher order phenomenon even in principle can't be reduced to physics is quite disturbing to me and besides that what confuses me the most is the distinction between laws of nature and scientific laws.

As a philosophy, reductionism and emergentism are probably both rubbish. They are useful instrumentalist ideas.

But the universe doesn't seem to have parts, it's one whole with everything interconnected, we can't truly reduce it to its building blocks because it doesn't have building blocks. When you look at a quark, you don't just have to consider the properties of that particular quark, but also how it relates to everything else in the universe. Those so-called higher order phenomenon are just as part of the universe as that particular quark is, probably without any strong emergence happening.

[Alias]

[2 Can fields other than physics or physical sciences like biology , neuroscience and chemistry and other social sciences also have their own distinct immutable laws / exceptionless regularities , what is the purpose of laws in those fields are they ultimately describing physical limits in a biological context ?]
[No, it's just easier to understand and maniplate aggregate physical laws in groupings of specialized function. ]

Would the response to the second question be that the laws in those special sciences represent physical limits in the biological context or biological in the physical context ?

No, it just means everything is physics, but physics is so big that it has to be divided into sub-groups and sub-sub groups for convenience of organizing the various areas of knowlege.

[Steve3007]

To clarify Steve -

that's still a problem of practicality tho, rather than an in principle reason to say physics is not in reality reducible to the tiniest bits of stuff being moved about by the 4 physical forces (gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism)?

Yes, it's still a problem of practicality but I think it illustrates where practicality merges with principle to the point where any difference between them is academic.

If a problem is not solvable in practice that means that it's too complicated, or technology is not sufficiently advanced, or the calculations would take too long, or something along those lines. Whereas if a problem is not solvable even in principle that means that it is deemed literally impossible, either because solving it would violate something that we regard as a universally applicable law of physics or because it would result in a self-contradiction (or both). I used the problems of breaking the sound and light barriers respectively as examples of this difference.

But if those practical problems tend to infinity, then practicality tends to principle. Infinity is, of course, a non-physical concept. It is, by definition, something that can never be reached in the real world (as opposed to the ideal world of mathematics), which is why in physics they tend to say that things "tend to infinity", meaning that for any given finite value an arbitrarily larger finite value can/will be reached.

[Gertie]

To clarify Steve -

that's still a problem of practicality tho, rather than an in principle reason to say physics is not in reality reducible to the tiniest bits of stuff being moved about by the 4 physical forces (gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism)?

Yes, it's still a problem of practicality but I think it illustrates where practicality merges with principle to the point where any difference between them is academic.

If a problem is not solvable in practice that means that it's too complicated, or technology is not sufficiently advanced, or the calculations would take too long, or something along those lines. Whereas if a problem is not solvable even in principle that means that it is deemed literally impossible, either because solving it would violate something that we regard as a universally applicable law of physics or because it would result in a self-contradiction (or both). I used the problems of breaking the sound and light barriers respectively as examples of this difference.

But if those practical problems tend to infinity, then practicality tends to principle. Infinity is, of course, a non-physical concept. It is, by definition, something that can never be reached in the real world (as opposed to the ideal world of mathematics), which is why in physics they tend to say that things "tend to infinity", meaning that for any given finite value an arbitrarily larger finite value can/will be reached.

Got it, thanks.

[Pattern-chaser]

I'm a 19 y/o High school graduate and a layman in philosophy who has had a strict materialist / physicalist viewpoint in life.However recently I'm having a crisis of ideology and questioning weather this view is valid or not , I had the view that everything in theory is reducible to physics and that everything is matter and energy and In principle everything is changeable and knowable regarding biology and chemistry. Recently I came across emergentism , holism and complexity theory. Which is making me confused.The statement that the sum of parts can't explain the whole and that higher order phenomenon even in principle can't be reduced to physics is quite disturbing to me...

Happily, your confusion about sums and parts can be easily explained, even if some of your other questions are a bit more difficult. Consider the scientific technique of reductionism: divide and conquer. If we come across something too complex to understand in one go - and many/most things probably meet that description - we divide it up into parts, and maybe divide those parts into 'sub-parts' too, until the parts are small and simple enough to understand. Then we go ahead and investigate each part. Finally, we re-assemble our understandings of the parts just as we might re-assemble the parts into the original whole. Hopefully, if reductionism has served us well, we now have an understanding of the whole.

The big shortcoming of reductionism is that it takes no account of the 'damage' done when we split the whole into parts. For part of the whole is the connections and relationships between the parts. Reductionism works well with some wholes, not so well for others. Specifically - and now we return to your question - reductionism works well with wholes that can be split into parts that have a minimum of interconnections. But the other wholes feature considerable parts of themselves in the form of interconnections between the parts, rather than the parts themselves. Such a whole is "more than the sum of its parts", simply and literally, and without any unscientific mysticism. Such a whole is equal to the sum of its parts and their inter-relationships.

There is much more to be said on this subject, but the above should offer some help, I hope?

[SweetSorrowBitter]

[2 Can fields other than physics or physical sciences like biology , neuroscience and chemistry and other social sciences also have their own distinct immutable laws / exceptionless regularities , what is the purpose of laws in those fields are they ultimately describing physical limits in a biological context ?]
[No, it's just easier to understand and maniplate aggregate physical laws in groupings of specialized function. ]

Would the response to the second question be that the laws in those special sciences represent physical limits in the biological context or biological in the physical context ?

No, it just means everything is physics, but physics is so big that it has to be divided into sub-groups and sub-sub groups for convenience of organizing the various areas of knowlege.

Isn't that also in a way reductionism ? Or can special sciences really be considered sub fields of physics

[Alias]

Isn't that also in a way reductionism ?

Okay, sure.

Or can special sciences really be considered sub fields of physics

Can if you want to. Probably the people who devote their lives to organic chemistry or marine biology don't think of themselves as susb-sub-subordinates of physicists, but I'm pretty sure physicists regard themselves as supra-meta-scientists.
Why does it matter?

[Pattern-chaser]

Or can special sciences really be considered sub fields of physics

Does it really matter what name we apply to a field of knowledge? Do the exact borders and attributes of a field of knowledge matter either?


...


Or is it the field of knowledge, or the knowledge itself, that is more significant? I think it is. Call it all physics if you wish; it's just a label, after all.

[SweetSorrowBitter]

Good points , thank you for answering