Greedy reductionism

In his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea Daniel Dennett usedterm greedy reductionismcondemn those formsreductionism that tryexplain too muchtoo little. Dennett, isleading figuresphilosophyscience, particularly evolutionary biologycognitive science. Dennett has argued reductionistically that human consciousness arises fromcoordinated activity ofmany unconscious components ofhuman brain. If so, therenothingstop us from creating human-like artificial intelligence fromcollectionnon-intelligent sub-routines. How can Dennett's own reductionistic program avoidpitfallsgreedy reductionism?

People like Richard DawkinsDouglas Hofstadter have suggested that foranalysiscomplex biological systems, successful reductionism must involve coordinated efforts acrosshierarchyorganizational levels. For example,make sense ofbehavior ofcomputer you can start withsoftware program like Internet Explorertryexplain its functionsterms ofalgorithms ofmany software modules that were combinedpackaged assingle application program. To explain howsoftware modules work you could explain howupper level software programimplemented inmachine codean actual computer. To explainworkingthat computer you would havedescribesemiconductorother components ofphysical machinehowexecute machine language instructions. Ultimately you can explainelectronic components ofcomputertermstheir physics.

Greedy reductionism isgood starting pointtryingexplaining macroscopic systems. In statistical mechanics you can account formacroscopic propertiesgasestermsmoleculestheir interactions. Butcomplex systems thereseveral hierarchical levelschunking, organizationdescription betweenphysics andcoherent explanation ofinteresting macroscopic behavior. It would be greedy reductionismtryexplainbehavioryour web browser onlyterms ofmovementelectrons. We may trysimply say "its all doneelectrons", butcomplete explanation must be considerably more sophisticated.

The opposite extreme from greedy reductionismthrowing up your handsdenying thatreductionistic analysis ofcomplex system can work at all. In his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea Dennett argues forreasonable middle ground between giving up on reductionismgreedy reductionism.

See also: holism