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Single Idea 6532
[filed under theme 7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
]
Full Idea
If types cannot be reduced to more physical levels, this is not an embarrassment, as long as our institutional categories, our physiological categories, and our physical categories are just alternative groupings of the same tokens.
Gist of Idea
Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens
Source
William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
Book Ref
Lycan,William G.: 'Consciousness' [MIT 1995], p.42
A Reaction
This is a self-evident truth about a car engine, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply equally to a brain. Lycan's identification of the type as the thing which cannot be reduced seems a promising explanation of much confusion among philosophers.
The
25 ideas
with the same theme
[explaining higher levels of existence by lower ones]:
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3425
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Reduction has been defined as deriving one theory from another by logic and maths
[Nagel,E, by Kim]
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6550
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Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations
[Sellars]
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5791
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Reduction is either by elimination, or by explanation
[Searle]
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5799
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Eliminative reduction needs a gap between appearance and reality, as in sunsets
[Searle]
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3473
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Reduction can be of things, properties, ideas or causes
[Searle]
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6984
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Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level
[Jackson]
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2317
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Reductionism is good on light, genes, temperature and transparency
[Kim, by PG]
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3990
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The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth
[Lewis]
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8607
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Supervenience is reduction without existence denials, ontological priorities, or translatability
[Lewis]
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5516
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Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination
[Parfit, by PG]
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4986
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A weaker kind of reductionism than direct translation is the use of 'bridge laws'
[Kirk,R]
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6531
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Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens
[Lycan]
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6532
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Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens
[Lycan]
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21110
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An understanding of the most basic physics should explain all of the subject's mysteries
[Krauss]
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7017
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The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality
[Heil]
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15050
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Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form
[Fine,K]
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15051
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Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction
[Fine,K]
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15052
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Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence
[Fine,K]
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15056
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The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced
[Fine,K]
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18539
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Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction
[Heil]
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7508
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Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another
[Pinker]
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14599
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Three types of reduction: Theoretical (of terms), Definitional (of concepts), Ontological (of reality)
[Schaffer,J]
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7944
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Reduce by bridge laws (plus property identities?), by elimination, or by reducing talk
[Macdonald,C]
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22180
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Multiple realisability is said to make reduction impossible
[Okasha]
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16345
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That Peano arithmetic is interpretable in ZF set theory is taken by philosophers as a reduction
[Halbach]
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