Do you prefer your science on a micro or macro scale?

[universe34]

I personally prefer micro, as it explains macro. I'm enrolled in a chemistry class currently, and it just helps me to make sense of the world around me. It's great. But I know many are impressed by the enormity of say, astronomy. I want to know what he typical INTP would think. And what you think, as those may differ.

 

[Words]

Macro. I despise both chemistry and biology. I find it hard to understand things when starting from smaller scales. It's as if you were spontaneously taken into a situation and forced to work with it. I have to see everything in a "tree-like" diagram for me to understand their relationships. That is why macro.

 

[ijustprotectedmyidentity]

i can see you like micro due to fractals. i like the question you posed. for me i like both but i am forced to learn macro. micro takes to much effort, is confusing, and im way to lazy to go to much in dept. so i try to learn as much as possible about history (MACRO)and i sway from one subject to another when i feel that learning the microscopic sciences takes to much effort! plus idid not have proffesional training in high school with the micro sciences but i would like to know more about them

 

[Latro]

There are two main things that bug me about the micro universe (although being a chemistry major I'm definitely micro > macro). The first is how many things are very difficult to actually know about it. There are many very basic reactions that we use all the time where what is actually going on is completely unknown. Sure we have some ideas about things, but there are steps within the whole mechanism that seem to happen by magic.

The second is how much of what we DO know makes so little intuitive sense. QM in particular is what I'm thinking of. So many results in QM make sense almost exclusively in the world of the mathematics in which they were derived. (I don't think this is quite as severe in relativity, although relativity has some counterintuitive results as well). And then even what we do understand in the mathematics is often extremely open to physical interpretation. What exactly the significance of the wavefunction is is still a very open question for example.

Still, being able to explain what's going on at the tiny scale has some major benefits for macro scale analysis and also on its own merit in some cases.

By the way, if you do any coding, it might be fun to generate some Mandelbrot variants with a programming language and plotting software. One that I've done before is zn = (zn-1)^2+(zn-2); basically replacing z0 with (zn-2). It creates a pretty neat plot which has some similarities to and differences from the Mandelbrot set. Some polynomials pretty much always diverge but many don't, and often you can get images that you wouldn't really be able to find online this way. I ought to get back into that...

 

[Cati]

Although most of my bio classes had something to do with biology at the micro scale, I always did better in all of my macro classes, namely anatomy. I originally planned on a career in biochemistry, but I didn't really get along with the subject. Since most of my lab experience is in bio at the micro scale, I may get into developmental or evolutionary biology since it concerns life at both the largest and smallest scales.

 

[GarmGarf]

I don't know which I prefer, actually.

My preference meter, on science topics, is how fundamental the topic is. There are both micro and macro fundamental and applied topics. If one of the two is inherently more fundamental, I suppose I perfer that (micro?), but is that truly the case?

 

[Architectonic]

Macro. I despise both chemistry and biology. I find it hard to understand things when starting from smaller scales. It's as if you were spontaneously taken into a situation and forced to work with it. I have to see everything in a "tree-like" diagram for me to understand their relationships. That is why macro.

A tree without its root seems somewhat incomplete.

I may get into developmental or evolutionary biology since it concerns life at both the largest and smallest scales.

Life at the larger scales concerns global ecology.

But developmental biology is a great field...

 

[Words]

A tree without its root seems somewhat incomplete.

Yet, If If I were to choose, I'd pick the tree. I could understand a tree as it is but it seems rather pointless to learn about the roots if there were no tree.

The most basic and fundamental laws is what I believe is the most important. How that relates to the "tree" is these laws' larger range of potential for several "roots". If the tree is incorrect, the millions of "micro views" becomes obsolete. If a micro view is incorrect, the tree can still be correct. It reminds me of questioning reality.


Thought an atom could be the origin of "basic". It would really have to return to how it operates in the larger field of the universe.


That is why I believe in continuously relating everything in the larger sense. Only from there can we proceed to specifics.

My reasons are probably only personal: I find it hard to jump from one specific to the next. I have to see the tangible and how it affects the reality we're perceiving. I guess a possible reason why I enjoy physics better.

micro, as it explains macro.

In my view, it can also go the other way. Possibly as deductive reasoning.

 

[RubberDucky451]

Macro!

I'm not into details, I generally like to see the "big picture". I get stressed when I need to study a small section without knowing what the small parts assemble to create.

 

[Architectonic]

In my view, it can also go the other way. Possibly as deductive reasoning.

How?

I don't see how you would deduce anything about quantum mechanics from the principles of ecological systems for example.

 

[unhinged]

Macro.

I guess its more of a personal preference. I like to understand how things fit and work together (the bigger picture). A basic idea of the micro level stuff is enough to do this. After I've figured out the macro level stuff, I generally loose interest and move on to some other topic...

Also... doesn't the definition of "micro" and "macro" depend on what perspective you are looking for? Anywhere you start from, you can always go deeper at the micro level (or the macro level for that matter)... If you're saying that chemistry is micro, I could argue that you could go to an even deeper level by studying how the atomic or molecular interactions actually work (which would probably take you into physics but it still fits into the definition of micro) and then even more into particle physics and then quantum mechanics...

Does any of that make sense?

 

[Words]

I don't see how you would deduce anything about quantum mechanics from the principles of ecological systems for example.

That is one example from micro to macro.

how?

Not sure. Behavior of solar systems being similar to behaviors in atomic levels? (am not so well informed in science)

The point I was trying to make however was that the patterns we see in our present vision without lenses can be a guide to understanding the micro levels. If (x + y)(micro) = z(macro), then 2x + y =/= z. By just knowing what's suppose to happen(the answer) on a larger scale, we simplify the possible ways in which micro objects should behave.

Anywhere you start from, you can always go deeper at the micro level (or the macro level for that matter)... If you're saying that chemistry is micro, I could argue that you could go to an even deeper level by studying how the atomic or molecular interactions actually work (which would probably take you into physics but it still fits into the definition of micro) and then even more into particle physics and then quantum mechanics...

Measured by the ordinary human eyesight? still we cannot see what is too big... as the neutral zone then?

 

[Adymus]

When it comes to psychology, Macro > Micro
Sure, everybody seems unique on an individual level, but if you zoom out to the big picture of human behavior you'll see all of the universalities of the human experience.

 

[Latro]

In my view, it can also go the other way. Possibly as deductive reasoning.

At least in physics, just no. There are very very few macroscopic quantum effects. The basic results from which QM was derived (like the thin slit experiment) didn't really have them per se; we just saw that the light spread out instead of coming out like a slit, we didn't actually observe the quantum effects on the photons. We have some now, but they're not that common, and tend to require bizarre conditions.

And no, QM's orbitals differ in absolutely fundamental ways from the orbits of the planets. There is no discretization on the order of QM's discretization in planetary orbits. (There may be some, but that would be a discretization of space itself, which would be a different situation.) The "planetary" model was one of the pre-QM models, though, more or less, and was QM-ified by Bohr with discretizing the orbital distances (which still gave a bad model, but it was better than before).

Also, when the microscopic differs by such a huge wall from the macroscopic (3*10^23 molecules in a gram of hydrogen gas for example), there isn't an easy way to use the macroscopic to predict the microscopic. Nothing in classical physics, much less our physical intuition, would predict a result like the uncertainty principle, and yet there it is.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

Macro.

But I absolutely disagree that biology & chemistry are "micro" sciences. VEHEMENTLY.

Yes, there are micro aspects. The listing of different values of electronegativity is micro. But the concept, the principles of electronegativity, is a macro concept!

The listings of proteins, and the listings of sequences, and the concentrations of specific substances.

But the principles of how life works? That macro. The origin of genome architecture, the DNA -> RNA -> protein central dogma. The cell cycle. That's macro stuff, it is those principles that give rise to all life.

 

[[SS].Invictus]

Micro VS Macro is like this for me;

Zoom into and you find the truth.
Zoom out and you see the beauty.

 

[unhinged]

Measured by the ordinary human eyesight? still we cannot see what is too big... as the neutral zone then?

What I meant was the concept of micro/macro were relative to whatever you are studying. Using the human eyesight as a measure seems arbitrary.

What do you mean by "as the neutral zone then"?

 

[Words]

What I meant was the concept of micro/macro were relative to whatever you are studying. Using the human eyesight as a measure seems arbitrary.

What do you mean by "as the neutral zone then"?

-3, -2, -1, *0*, 1, 2, 3,

The zero, if that makes any sense.

Well, that's only if we're looking for a way to measure what is micro/macro. You know, to move forward with topic by temporary substitution. I probably don't make any sense...

 

[unhinged]

It does make sense...

However if you are using the human eyesight as a measure, how would you go about categorizing concepts that can not "seen"?

But I absolutely disagree that biology & chemistry are "micro" sciences. VEHEMENTLY.

Yes, there are micro aspects. The listing of different values of electronegativity is micro. But the concept, the principles of electronegativity, is a macro concept!

The listings of proteins, and the listings of sequences, and the concentrations of specific substances.

But the principles of how life works? That macro. The origin of genome architecture, the DNA -> RNA -> protein central dogma. The cell cycle. That's macro stuff, it is those principles that give rise to all life.

You could generalize what RT to get a definition that would be more generally applicable. If its acceptable is a different matter. I think it should serve the purpose.

 

[Jaico]

Macro.

But I absolutely disagree that biology & chemistry are "micro" sciences. VEHEMENTLY.

Yes, there are micro aspects. The listing of different values of electronegativity is micro. But the concept, the principles of electronegativity, is a macro concept!

The listings of proteins, and the listings of sequences, and the concentrations of specific substances.

But the principles of how life works? That macro. The origin of genome architecture, the DNA -> RNA -> protein central dogma. The cell cycle. That's macro stuff, it is those principles that give rise to all life.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, RT. There's always going to be a "macro" and a "micro" to everything - me, I prefer the macro...how everything fits together, how/why things are the way they are. I think that science should be more about the concepts, explanation, and understanding rather than the tiny details that nobody really cares about - I mean, sure, you may have to dive into the details once in a while, but you're probably going to forget about that in a few days anyways...but you probably won't forget the concept behind it. I don't really care what the molecular mass of a protein involved in the cell cycle is, or what the osmolarity of the blood is for a normal human - I want to know why that is, how it affects someone, and why we give a damn. I think that people should be taught the big picture, with the details being a 'background'/support sort of thing, rather than asking people about what the names of a protein is, or whatever.

This doesn't just go for biology/biochem/chemistry either - in psychology, I don't think I'd really care whether or not I knew what study supports a certain theory, and in what year it was - I just need to know that it did happen, and the general, overarching principle behind it. If you really need to know those things, then you can use the internet/a book/ask other people - but if you don't know the concept, then the details are essentially meaningless.

 

[Latro]

Much of the important training IMO is knowing where to look little details like that up easily.

 

[Anling]

I'm more of a big picture person. I like having things tie together. But I think the micro/macro distinction is rather arbitrary. The big things are made up of the little things. There is no real separation between them. The system just gets more complex the more pieces are added.

 

[Architectonic]

Turtles all the way down... Anyone have any new views on this?

 

[Words]

How much more 'unknowns' are there to Micro as oppose to Macro (in terms of laws and patterns)? Or is that 'unknown' as well?