| reductionism vs holism -
12-29-2005, 02:08 PM
Reductionists believe that all of physical reality is comprehensible by studying the parts that comprise the whole. On the other hand, holistic philosophers believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
When applying these philosophies to the study of the universe, quantum mechanics would represent the reductionist approach, while general relativity would represent the holistic approach. Reductionism is a particle formalism in contrast to the field formalism of holism. However, the combined approach would be represented by a quantum field theory. The approach that studies the interactions of particle and field. Nevertheless, the question remains: which is more fundamental? Vector field? Or scalar field? Vector field deals with magnitude and direction, while scalar field deals only with magnitude.
Time independence: [∂E(g)]²=[∂F(a)×∂r(a)]·[∂F(b)×∂r(b)] and Mass independence: ¶a(t)·¶r(t)=c²
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