Reductionism

I will begin this time with a parable. Let’s look in on one R. E. Ductionist, BS, MS, PhD, SOB, MPA (Major Pain in the A$$). One morning Dr. Ductionist is sitting in his lab with little to do. Just yesterday he completed his last project which accomplished its goal of further verifying the conclusions of The Prophet Einstein. His accountants are still calculating the amount of money essential for his next proposal with the predetermined conclusion that The Prophet Einstein is correct and are having trouble counting that high. He has just finished his morning coffee. He begins to examine his coffee cup (inscribed “World’s Greatest Scientist – Honorable Mention” which was a consolation prize from the Nobel committee) and speculates what it is made of. He takes out a hammer that he has affectionately named “Little Albert” and smashes the cup. Cursory examination reveals that the cup is made of glazed ceramic. (From here on I will assume that Dr. Ductionist’s lab has every type of device necessary for this mental exercise. That is because he has the unquestioned backing of a tech mogul, a person whose life he saved when they were both students and the future mogul began choking on a live rat that he was trying to swallow during his performance at his summer job in a circus sideshow.) Chemical and spectroscopic analysis of the fragments gives him a list of the compounds that they are made from. He then pulverizes the fragments and subjects the powder to further analysis that shows the compounds are made of molecules. He runs those through his scanning electron microscope that shows the molecules are made of atoms and the atoms are made of subatomic particles. He then pulls out the Ronco Pocket Hadron Collider ™ that he received for his birthday and determines that the subatomic particles are made of the interaction of various quanta. (We will stop here for this parable, and I swear that if anyone mentions dark matter and dark energy they will be slathered in lard and chained to a stake outside in wolf territory.) He logs all of the results in his Qubit laptop.

Now, class, he knows everything about what the coffee cup is. Who among you can tell me what it is not? (If you do not have an immediate answer, think for a moment before you read on.) Hint: It has been a busy morning after all, and Dr. Ductionist is feeling the need to take a break. At one side of the laboratory is a pot full of a rejuvenating hot beverage, if only he had a way to get it without burning himself. That’s right, it is no longer a coffee cup. Dr. Ductionist has demolished its form, its function, and I daresay its very essence while neither learning nor proving anything about them. That is the failure and the foible of rampant reductionism.

Reductionism has been in ascendancy as the available analytical tools have improved. Unfortunately it has not yet faced the fatal flaw that just because some things can be explained by splitting things into finer pieces and examining them, that does not mean that everything can be explained that way. Once again, the hazard and the misunderstanding lie in mistaking the tool for an end by itself.

It is not just physics that has fallen into this trap, however. The biological/organic disciplines often go there as well. I read a magazine called ForteanTimes. In a recent issue (#468, March 2026, p. 39) there was an interview with a director named Bryn Chainey that contained the following quote from him about analogue technology: “Inspect a vinyl (i. e. record- CW) under a microscope and you see the scars that contain your favourite song. Hold exposed film under a light and you’re seeing a chemical imprint of the actual light that bounced off your lover’s face. It’s evidence that the mind exists.” That got me to thinking. Photos are just a record of light long absorbed (whether in chemicals on acetate or electrons in a digital matrix.) Tears are just salty water with a few other chemical compounds. A smile is just certain muscles contracting. What links the first with either of the latter two is consciousness. The same can be applied easily to listening to music. By the same token, a cat being stroked is just experiencing pressure in motion and purring is just vibrations in fluids, tissues, and eventually air. The link is consciousness. One might be able to take it down as far as the fact that hot water is just rapidly moving molecules while food is just chemical compounds in water, and an amoeba is just water and chemicals (protoplasm) that can be shifted around encased in a flexible membrane. The fact that the amoeba may avoid the first and approach and engulf the second could be taken as evidence of a rudimentary consciousness. Those links may be the only definition necessary or possible for consciousness. (And no, simple stimulus/response does not cover all situations and all possible responses. Otherwise, why does the same photo or song inspire tears in one person and a smile in another, or even such different reactions in the same person at different times? It is not because one reaction is right and one is wrong or because one cluster of cells is dysfunctional.) If some “scientists” are unhappy with that because they cannot put it on a slide under a microscope or locate it with an MRI, well boo-hoo. Nonetheless, there is a dominant school of thought that believes that with just one more finely tuned scan they will discover a cluster or even a single cell that they can delineate as consciousness as they shout, “Eureka, we have found it!” They also erroneously believe that without finding said cell or cluster then the “debate” about consciousness is unresolved and can and must continue. I will submit that the existence of consciousness is not the problem, the determination to reduce and define it is.

Actually, that brings us back around to the physicists. There is a body of thought there that insists that everything is just information about quantum states and changes, and that what is perceived of as physical reality is just a result of those. This may eliminate the barrier between existence and their perfect and precise math. Sorry, but I just cannot believe it. I cannot speak for them or for you, but I know that – just like Dr. Ductionist’s coffee cup before he wantonly smashed it – I am something more than the sum of my parts. I am, therefore I think.

Gort, berenga.