Full Idea
Reduction runs aground when the accumulation of knowledge concerning the parts in isolation is not helping to explain the behaviour of the collective.
Gist of Idea
Reduction gets stuck when the isolated individuals can't explain the collective
Source
Mazviita Chirimuuta (The Brain Abstracted [2024], 1.3)
A Reaction
Good. She has in mind the brain, but global weather and ecology are similar. I hold a reductive physicalist view of the brain, while seeing no prospect at all of giving a full reductive explanation of it.
Book Reference
Mazviita Chirimuuta: 'The Brain Abstracted' [MIT 2024], p.10