All Writing is Reductionistic

In 1687, Isaac Newton published Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, in which he laid out groundbreaking new ideas about the physics of movement. The Principia was so thorough and rigorous that it has been described as “the ultimate exemplar of science generally.”¹ It expounds laws of motion and physics that are universally applicable.²

…except for in situations where objects are traveling at speeds close to the speed of light. This is what Eintstein posited with his famous Theory of Special Relativity, which he first described in 1905.

Was Newton wrong? No. But his writing was reductionistic. It didn’t capture the special scenarios later discussed by Einstein. It reduced a complex reality to a usefully simpler set of concepts that was easier to comprehend. Newton didn’t know this, of course—no one knew about special relativity at that point. Newton wrote about what he did know, and the result was increased understanding and scientific progress, notwithstanding it being reductionistic.

When you think about it, all writing is reductionistic. Writing is our human attempt to capture what is probably an infinitely complex reality in finitely complex words. Thus, our writing is necessarily incomplete, lacking detail.

It’s kind of like tracing a fractal—a mathematical shape with infinite detail—with a finite pen. It can’t be done. That’s not to say that you can’t achieve a meaningful or useful approximation of the fractal, though. It’s the same with writing.

Therefore, what?

In my mind, there are two main applications of this idea.

First, it can help us avoid perfectionism in our own writing. It has been said that writing, like art, is not so much finished as it is abandoned. We can take comfort in knowing that our writing can’t be finished, in a sense. It will always be missing some level of detail or nuance, which will hopefully be contributed by others as they build on what we share.

Second, we can benefit from viewing others’ writing through this lens. This can help us both to withhold criticism and extend grace to writers whose writing seems imperfect, and to maintain healthy skepticism of those whose writing we accept or agree with. In both cases, they’re probably missing something that some future writer will contribute. We can be open both to the thoughts of the first writer and to the second.³

But perhaps, in saying all this, I’m just being reductionistic myself.

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