More Is Different

On the limitations of reductionism

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

“The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe”.
P.W.Anderson

What is the most real thing in the world? Is it the number pi? Is it the quantum fields merrily vibrating us into existence? Or is it the white and black on the screen on which you are reading…