Reductionism, emergence, and levels of abstractions
Other Computer Science
2008-05-24 v1
Abstract
Can there be independent higher level laws of nature if everything is reducible to the fundamental laws of physics? The computer science notion of level of abstraction explains why there can -- illustrating how computational thinking can solve one of philosophy's most vexing problems.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0707.4198,
title = {Reductionism, emergence, and levels of abstractions},
author = {Russ Abbott},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.4198},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
This piece is to be submitted to CACM as a Viewpoint article. It is only 1200 word because that's the word limit on such pieces. Updates (if any) will be available at http://cs.calstatela.edu/wiki/images/e/e2/Reductionism%2C_emergence%2C_and_levels_of_abstractions.doc