Even the staunch reductionist realizes that as fatuous as it would be to explain a baseball’s trajectory in terms of molecular motion, it would only be more so to invoke such a microscopic perspective in explaining what a batter was feeling as the pitcher went through his windup, the crowd roared, and the fastball approached. Instead, higher-level stories told in the language of human reflection provide far greater insight. Nevertheless—and this is key—these better-suited human-level stories must be compatible with the reductionist account. We are physical creatures subject to physical law.
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