If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is that...all things are made of atoms."
Richard P. Feynman, winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics
"All things are made of atoms." This seems like a simple enough statement, but what all does this entail? Let's begin by recognizing that you and I are made of atoms. As we inhale air and eat our food we are in essence recycling in new atoms to replace our old atoms. One not so pleasant illustration: when you smell a bad scent (perhaps when changing a baby's diaper or cleaning up after a dog), atoms and molecules from the waste actually enter your nose causing a cascade of reactions resulting in the message, "that stinks!" in your brain.
The simple statement, "all things are made of atoms" leads us to some important questions. If humans are made up of atoms that simply act in accordance with physical and chemical laws, what implications does this have on our view of humanity? In other words, if our bodies, including our brains, are made up of atoms, how are our thoughts, feelings and emotions determined? Is our "sense of self" simply a product of the chemical reactions taking place in our brain?
Reductionism is the idea that nature is best understood by unpacking complex systems to their basic, fundamental parts. This leads to the idea that every complex system, like a human, is basically a sum of its smaller parts. Richard Feynman argued this viewpoint when he said, "The most important hypothesis in all of biology, for example, is that everything that animals do, atoms do. In other words, there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics."
Opponents to this view hold that a human exhibits certain emergent qualities such as love, faith and rationality that are more than the sum of its constituent parts. Illustration? Many will admit that it is uncomfortable for us to believe that humans are made from the same basic materials as all other matter. They raise concerns that the reductionist view of humans leads to a devaluation of human life.
In the last 50 years, our understanding of the atom and molecule has grown leaps and bounds, largely due to brilliant minds like that of Richard Feynman. With this new understanding, we have seen biology grow as well.
Instructions
What do you think? Is reductionism a good way to understand humans? Is it the only way? What might be some ethical implications of this view? Summarize your perspective.