🐜 🍯 Anth “unholy” Becker
@anthonybecker.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.9K following 19K posts
Begging you to talk to me about your niche interest. I’m a lovely man who works as a software engineer in California. Extremely mystical. Alt text: pfp and banner are me. I have curly black hair. He/Him
![The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. That is, it seems to me that one may array the sciences roughly linearly in a hierarchy, according to the idea: The elementary entities of science X obey the laws of science Y.
[A Table. The table consists of two columns, labeled X and Y, illustrating a hierarchical relationship between different scientific disciplines. The first row lists solid state or many-body physics in column X, corresponding to elementary particle physics in column Y. The pattern continues downward, pairing chemistry with many-body physics; molecular biology with chemistry; and cell biology with molecular biology. Vertical ellipses are then used in both columns to indicate that the hierarchy continues. The final two rows list psychology in column X corresponding to physiology in column Y, and social sciences in column X corresponding to psychology in column Y.]
But this hierarchy does not imply that science X is "just applied Y." At each stage entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u77gyutvsyoa36kmz2wj4cmw/bafkreig6hrha2tblynndeumv4rubqepnwdfqclddad6cambcgfwaigjcgi)
