Is it a Janus‐Faced World After All? Physics is Not Reductionist
Bashir Ahmad, Richard Gordon · 2024
All the higher-level phenomena in the study of life are holistic, and thereby usually Janus-faced (where higher-level phenomena affect lower levels, and vice versa ), causing an intellectual separation of physics from biology and the conundrum of the origin of life. We examine modern physics, and the extent to which it itself is Janus-faced and/or holistic. This is done at the macroscopic, cosmological, quantum, and subatomic levels. While we do not address “meaning,” except in the heads of physicists, we think it is important to note to what extent modern physics is NOT reductionist. Thus, modern physics and biology may actually have much in common.