Comment by geye1234

I think there's a difference though. The examples you cite relate to artificial things, where reductionism makes sense. Quantum physics describes natural things, where I don't think it does, even at a macro level.

A natural thing's behaviour can't be reduced to the sum of its parts. Example: an organ, taken out of an organism, stops being an organ and becomes a lump of rotting flesh. Its behaviour fundamentally and completely changes. So an organ can only be considered an organ insofar as it's a part of an organism. Similarly, an oxygen atom within a water molecule displays vastly different properties from those it would display when a free radical (or as part of an O2 molecule). Examples could be multiplied. So I don't think quantum physics is any different from the 'macro' world in this regard.

So I think the difference is natural-artificial, not quantum-macro.