I guess it boils to whether you believe the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, whether you believe emergent phenomena exist, right?
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
I haven't read this paper in years but I recall it helped me structure my own thoughts on this issue in a more coherent way: Bersini, H. (2012). Emergent phenomena belong only to biology. Synthese, 185(2), 257-272.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9724-4 …
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
I haven't read this literature in years... I spent the whole of 2008/9 really geeking out on top-down, bottom-up, mid-out analyses (saw Iris use this last term/made me smile), as an UG in CS. Nobody in CS is a dualist but they certainly believe in levels of abstraction.
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
But anyway, my point is that yes, you can probably explain stuff in terms of quantum mechanics for every subject. There could be a theory of economics that explained it using QM... but would that be a useful account? I would argue: no.
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
In fact I made this point before. "Nevertheless, fMRI has proven useful in understanding neural representations that are consequential to behavior. Perhaps this success suggests that the appropriate level for relating brain to behavior is close to what fMRI measures.
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
This does not mean lower-level efforts do not have utility when the details are of interest. However, fMRI’s success might mean that when one is interested in the nature of computations carried out by the brain, the level of analysis where fMRI applies may be preferred.
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
To draw an analogy, one could construct a theory of macroeconomics based on quantum physics, but it would be incredibly cumbersome and no more predictive nor explanatory than a theory that contained abstract concepts such as money and supply.
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
Reductionism, while seductive, is not always the best path forward."https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21397 …
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Replying to @o_guest @neurograce and
I agree with some of what youve said but not that fmri is a good way to link behavior to biology. IMO, It's one of many approaches and not particularly good for understanding mechanisms.
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Replying to @bradpwyble @o_guest and
There's so much that we won't be able to learn from the average activity of millions of neurons arranged in cubes.
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I'm not entirely sure I claimed fMRI is the ONLY way. But sure, there is a lot that will be missed.
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