We discuss poetic naturalism and its nemesis, tunnel vision reductionism. Tunnel vision reductionism takes one description of reality and declares it to be the “real” description of reality to the exclusion of all others. At the very least, the given lower level of description is considered “more true” than higher-level descriptions.

The basic problem with tunnel vision reductionism is that it has a narrow and inconsistent notion of the real. Neurons are taken to be real, but emotions are illusory (or at least, less real than neurons). Both are emergent, higher level phenomena, but for some reason, the former is the true description. But if love isn’t real because it’s a higher level description, then neurons aren’t real either. Neither are chemicals like oxytocin. But of course, higher level descriptions are real. There are many legitimate theories, models, vocabularies, stories, and ways of talking about the world. As poetic naturalist Sean Carroll puts it, “if a particular way of talking turns out to be sufficiently accurate and useful, the elements in its corresponding vocabulary deserve to be called real.” If we describe the biochemical correlates of love, we haven’t described everything there is to know about love, nor have we given the “real” description of love.

“But all this only works if we reject reductive materialism, right?” No! This is true especially if one accepts reductive materialism. On reductive materialism, the feeling of love and oxytocin are both real in exactly the same way.

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