Systemism

We can experience a system as a whole or analyse it into its constituent parts. A worldview that privileges the former is called "holism", and the latter "reductionism". In everyday conversation, holism typically carries a positive connotation, whereas reductionism is often levelled as a criticism.

Domains that are interpreted as emphasising analysis, most notably science, are called "reductionist" when their method is taken to filter out important aspects of the world. In recent years, a critique of food and nutritional scientists, which argued that they were guilty of "nutritional reductionism", gained significant traction. The critics instead advocated for various kinds of holism.

If the scientist is the archetypal reductionist, then the archetypal holist is the artist, experiencing the world as it is given and integrating multiple aspects of that experience into their art.

The dichotomy between holism and reductionism is usually false. A scientist who appreciates the holistic beauty of plants is more likely to become interested in their analysis. An artist who is aware of the geometrical patterns in the parts of nature may incorporate them into their artwork. While there are scientific disciplines that focus on parts (molecular biology), there are also those focused on wholes (synthetic biology), and many scientists that oscillate between them.

There is a verticality in how we contrast holism and reductionism. We imagine experiencing the whole at a "high level" and the parts at a "low level". At the higher level, we can "take everything in" but at the low level we "miss the big picture". Even stronger, some argue that analysis risks destroying the whole, with our immediate experience being displaced by a symbolic language of atoms, bits, molecules, and nutrients.

Instead, reductionism can be thought of as a narrowing of perspective. In that sense, holism itself is a kind of reductionism, as it narrows our perspective to the whole, a particular level of analysis. Just as we can be "nutritional reductionists" (reducing food to nutrients), we can also be "sensory reductionists" (reducing food to sense experience) or "cultural reductionists" (reducing food to its socio-cultural role). Each of these is a legimitimate way to analyse food but none of them is total.

To be more clear, we can think of two general kinds of reduction, each amounting to a narrowing of perspective:

• Macro-reduction: narrowing from parts to wholes (holism)
• Micro-reduction: narrowing from wholes to parts (reductionism)

Science often begins with the experience of an interesting phenomenon. A scientist then attempts to study its underlying causes. When the analysis is complete, they build a model that connects the causes to the experience. The investigation not only includes considerations of parts and wholes, but also attempts to integrate them together in the form of an explanation.

An engineer who develops software moves between writing the code and debugging the program. They experience a problem with the user interface and then must analyse the causes of that problem. The development process is a continuous loop between the parts that make up the program and that whole experience that the user encounters.

The Argentinian philosopher Mario Bunge used the term "systemism" to refer to an epistemology of systematic explanations that bridges holism and reductionism. Bunge was skeptical of both holism and reductionism when used in isolation: reductionists are at risk of fragmentation, while holists are prone to superficiality.

Imagine that you have made a causal observation of some kind. This could be that:

• Clicking the button made the software crash
• Mixing the chemicals made the solution blue

This is the macro level. It is at the top of this diagram and is signified by $A_0 \to B_0$:

$$ \displaystyle {\displaystyle {\text{A}_0 \atop \downarrow} \atop \text{A}_1} {\displaystyle {\to \atop \phantom{x}} \atop \to} {\displaystyle {\text{B}_0 \atop \uparrow} \atop \text{B}_1} $$

At the bottom there is another causal relation $A_1 \to B_1$ occupying the micro level. The micro is relatively less salient or immediate, and may require deep reasoning or the use of instruments:

• How is the button implemented and does it produce the bug?
• Which type of chemicals did I mix and what reaction was generated?

Moving between the two levels — micro and macro — is characteristic of:

• Analysis: determining the micro-level causes responsible for macro-level effects
• Synthesis: creating macro-level effects through manipulation of micro-level components

After restricting ourselves to a single level of analysis in our methodology, we risk forming a view of reality that is artificially constrained:

• Micro-reduction: "there is no society, only individuals"
• Macro-reduction: "there are no individuals, only groups"

While the former is commonly referred to as "reductionism", in contra-distinction to the "holism" of the latter, both are related as being kinds of reduction, requiring a narrowing of perspective and a denial of systematic relations.

The "macro" does not always refer to a definite level or scale in a physical sense. It depends on the context of an investigation. The elevated position of the macro in the diagram should also not be understood as establishing its priority, just as the lower position of the micro does not always prioritise it as foundational.

The specific domain of inquiry determines the level of analysis, and the analysis is not restricted to only two levels:

When there is an explanatory gap between two or more levels, the ontological concept of "emergence" is invoked. Here, there are a set of coincident events but no established relation between them. Crucially, this does not mean that the relation will never be known, only that it remains to be discovered; for example, the apparent emergence of a blue colour in a mixture is displaced by a mechanistic explanation when we study the underlying chemistry.

In summary, we often have questions of the form "what $x_1$ is the cause of $x_0$?":

$$x_1? \to x_0$$

The $x_0$ could be a scientific observation, a software bug, or a meal preparation. The study or engineering of the relevant system often requires moving between stages of analysis and synthesis. From such a process, we develop deep explanations.

In analysis, we do a top-down study of the micro-level causes. To explain why salt morphology affects the intensity of saltiness, we can measure the dissolution of different NaCl crystals in artificial saliva.

In synthesis, we do a bottom-up evaluation of the macro-level effects. To explore the relationship between dissolution rate and saltiness, we take salts with known dissolution rates and get people to evaluate their saltiness.

We form a complete picture, in which the shapes of salt crystals influence their dissolution rate, affecting the dissociation of salt into $Na^+$ and $Cl^-$ ions, which interact with taste receptors on the tongue and initiate the firing of signals to the brains that result in the perception of different intensitities of saltiness:

$$ {\displaystyle {\text{salt} \atop \downarrow} \atop \text{Na}^+} {\displaystyle {\to \atop \phantom{x}} \atop \to} {\displaystyle {\text{taste} \atop \uparrow} \atop \text{signal}} $$

Systemism is not restricted to chemistry. The invention of technology helps people make progress. Such progress is scaled to a societal level when an invention has a concrete implementation as a product. This exposes it to the market, which initiates mechanisms of feedback that improve the implementation. Accelerating progress is not only about incentivising entrepreneurship; it's also about creating the preconditions for invention and establishing reliable mechanisms of feedback.

$$ {\displaystyle {\text{Product} \atop \uparrow} \atop \text{Invent}} {\displaystyle {\to \atop \phantom{x}} \atop \to} {\displaystyle {\text{Market} \atop \downarrow} \atop \text{Progress}} $$

The appearance of "emergent" properties may highlight an inappropriate conceptual or methodological framing. For example, water can be interpreted on a strictly molecular basis as being composed of two kinds of elements existing in a certain relative proportion and structured by particular forces. This is the micro level. Yet, at the macro level, water has properties like viscosity and turbulence, which are difficult to predict based on strict appeals to molecular chemistry. For this reason, scientific fields like rheology are oriented towards developing specific methodologies appropriate to a relatively macro level.

$$ \displaystyle \overbrace{ {\displaystyle {A_0 \atop \downarrow} \atop A_1} {\displaystyle {\to \atop \phantom{x}} \atop \to} {\displaystyle {B_0 \atop \uparrow} \atop B_1} }^{\text{analysis}} \iff \overbrace{ {\displaystyle {A_0 \atop \uparrow} \atop A_1} {\displaystyle {\to \atop \phantom{x}} \atop \to} {\displaystyle {B_0 \atop \downarrow} \atop B_1} }^{\text{synthesis}} $$

The utility of having a deep explanation of a phenomenon is not always clear. When first learning chemistry or programming, we might not recognise the value of a systematic explanation of some everyday occurence. What power does it give us?

Consider the case of pink tea. With some varieties of green tea, it is possible to create a bright pink colour if it is brewed with baking soda and milk. Recipes typically report that baking soda is needed to generate the colour, without specifying why.

At the micro level, baking soda is just an alkalising agent. It elevates pH resulting in chemical reactions (rxns) involving tea polyphenols that cause a change in colour. When milk is heated, there is also a chemical reaction between its sugars and proteins, which contribute a browning effect that is accelerated in alkaline conditions.

$$ {\displaystyle { \text{NaHCO}_3 \atop \downarrow } \atop \text{OH}^-} {\displaystyle { \to \atop \phantom{x} } \atop \to} {\displaystyle { \text{pink} \atop \uparrow } \atop \text{rxns}} $$

The original macro observation is still valid and may be perfectly sufficient if we only want to make pink tea for friends. Once we have a micro explanation, we do not discard the macro one. Both levels can function together in an explanatory system. In addition, the explanation gives us more power to act.

For example, someone may want to drink pink tea but is concerned about their sodium intake. We have learned that the recipe does not require baking soda, however, only something from the general class of alkalising agents. To increase pH we need something that releases $OH^-$ ions. It is therefore possible to substitute baking soda for a sodium-free alternative as long as it releases $OH^-$, with potassium hydroxide ($KOH$) being an obvious candidate.

Imagine that a significant market for pink tea has emerged and there is a demand to manufacture it at industrial scale. The problem is that there is significant inter-batch variation in colour and an immediate need to better control the process. We have learned that a change in pH is critical for determining the final colour of the tea. Installing a pH measuring device to ensure that the correct pH is consistently reached would seem prudent.

Finally, changes in colour induced by chemical reactions involving polyphenols, sugars and proteins are unlikely to be restricted to the peculiar case of pink tea. Knowledge of the link between chemical reactions and colour changes can be generalised to many other systems. For example, the (Maillard) browning effect mentioned earlier can be used to explain everything from the deliciousness of toast to the reduced nutritional quality of some foods during processing and storage.

Bunge, M. (2014/2003). Emergence and Convergence: Qualitative Novelty and the Unity of Knowledge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Bunge, M. (1979). Treatise on Basic Philosophy Volume 4, Ontology II: A World of Systems. Dordrecht: D. Reidel publishing Company.