Recognising Top-Down Causation by George F. R. Ellis

Dear George:

What are your thoughts on the role of consciousness or free will as the top down causation that gives rise to human beings? I have expressed some of my thoughts below based on my paper -" From Absurd to Elegant Universe":

Causation vs. Free Will - What is Fundamental?

The following arguments support the conclusion that Free Will or Spontaneity or Consciousness is the fundamental or root cause process of all physical phenomena and the widely used assumption that particles/strings are fundamental reality is wrong as evidenced by its failure to predict/describe 96% of the universe and resulting in the prevailing paradoxes/inconsistencies.

An outcome of an event is determined by the input parameters and the governing law (or equation). The governing laws are the fundamental universal laws of conservation of mass, energy, momentum, space, and time which are existent at Free Will without any external cause. The input is also chosen at the free will of the observer or operator. In some cases, the input is determined by the outcome of a preceding event such as in the Domino Effect. But even in those cases, the originating or primary root input is always determined at the free will of the originator or source. Hence, the universe is not a Clockwork Universe wherein its fate is predetermined. The evolution of the material or manifested universe is subject to the free-willed laws and inputs.

The widely used assumption that particles or strings of matter are the most fundamental elements of universal reality is incorrect. The particles are known to be born spontaneously out of or decay spontaneously into the so-called vacuum or nothingness. Hence, the fundamental reality, both top-down and bottom-up, is vacuum (or the Zero point state of the mass-energy-space-time continuum as described in my paper. This state is synonymous with the implicit eternal and omnipresent laws of the universe.

The fundamental physical process that leads to spontaneous (no causation) birth or decay of particles is the free will or spontaneity in the universe. A universal theory that does not entail this free-will dimension allowing spontaneous conversion of mass-energy-space-time continuum will remain incomplete and unable to describe the universal reality. This is vindicated in my paper wherein it is demonstrated that allowance of such spontaneous process in conjunction with general relativity leads to the correct prediction of the observed universe, creation and dilation of matter, and classical as well as quantum behavior of particles eliminating black hole singularities and paradoxes related to inner workings of quantum mechanics.

Regards

Avtar Singh

nmann,

I expect that while you may be an expert on computers, you don't know much about computing.

I'm reminded of being at a conference a few years ago, being self-conscious about using the old-fashioned method of overhead projection on cels to present, while most who were much younger than I had prepared fancy PowerPoints. Marvin Minsky was a plenary speaker, however, and kept the assembly waiting while an overhead projector was rolled to the podium, set up and adjusted. He responded to an unasked question, "I just work work with computers. I don't like them."

Tom

George

Thank you. I'm not too astonished some argue against, in Quantum and Classical there must of course always be someone who's convinced black is white.

Point 4. You say "You have to take the properties of the boundary into account as well. You regard it as a macro entity, i.e. you don't try to describe its constitution detail." Interesting view. I know you're currently thinking in a different area, but my essay is actually ALL about the constitution of the quantum boundaries of 'space time geometries' (frames) and how the real interactions there (with non point particles and temporal evolution) produce all the classical macro scale effects we term Relativity.

I'm a little surprised and disappointed that did not emerge for you. I hoped you may try to falsify the ontology as we've have had no success doing so to date.

Have you actually read it all yet?

Best wishes

Peter

it becomes interesting.:) It was times to have concrete discussions.

Mr Ellis.

the artificial intelligence, that said , can be made if the biology is inserted. the informations can be encoded with a kind of sortings of these informations. But of course it becomes intriguing. The emotions indeed are results of specific biological evolution. Can we reproduce these emotions, I think that no also, but we can create a process of evolution and sortings implying a kind of artificial intelligence.I ask me how the synapctic messages can be inserted ? How the diffusions of informations are inside a closed system. The brain is fascinating. It is possible easily to insert parameters of movements. But this entanglement, correlated with the evolutive human brain for example, is so complex. I agree so, we cannot reproduce emotions, but we can imply a kind of comportment correlated. Like a specific algorythm of selectivity about these comportments. It is intriguing all that.

The brain is more than a turing machine, we are aged of 13.7 to 15 billions years ! It is evident that the biology is very complex in all its combinations. The brain and the adn like wonderful creations.

Regards

Zeilinger has indeed said that. However, he has also said that something which sounds to me a lot like superdeterminism cannot be ruled out. And his group's paper describing their experimental violation of [a slightly tweaked version of] the Leggett inequality [ArXiv 0704.2529, page 7] says this:

"... Furthermore, one could consider the breakdown of other assumptions that are implicit in our reasoning leading to the inequality. These include Aristotelian logic, counterfactual deniteness, absence of actions into the past or a world that is not completely deterministic. ..."

The first time I read the sentence I thought maybe they needed an editor for English clarity but no: it says what it says.

That's "counterfactual deFIniteness" of course. Careless cutting and pasting on this poster's part.

As I argue in my essay, if the source of all information is the point at infinity (which exists at every point of four dimensional spacetime), we have local and simultaneous access in principle to everything in Wheeler's world built of information alone, though the act of measurement orders recorded events into our unique worldline.

One recalls the arithmetic theorem that a single point may simultaneously approach any other set of points provided that the point is far enough away.

Tom

"Also 'a world that is not completely deterministic' is the standard view, is it not?"

"A world that is not completely deterministic" is "one of the other assumptions that are implicit in our reasoning leading to the inequality" which the results of the Leggett experiment (resulting in a violation of Leggett's inequality) might be regarded as having put at hazard ... made subject to "breakdown" as the experimenters put it. Along with other stuff I find personally find somewhat easier to live without ("Aristotelian logic, counterfactual definiteness" even "absence of actions into the past").

In other words, the experimental outcome brings forward the possibility of a world that IS completely deterministic. Zeilinger copped to that somewhere, as I recall, but stated that he personally found it unimaginable. Of course there'd be no possibility at all of "free will." Which isn't the standard view or else 't Hooft wouldn't be particularly controversial.

A lot of double negatives, agreed.

Dear George Ellis,

Apropos of nothing other than the topic of your essay, I just now stumbled upon another delightful quote which I think you might appreciate in the event you've not already seen it.

"We seek reality, but what is reality? The physiologists tell us that organisms are formed of cells; the chemists add that cells themselves are formed of atoms. Does this mean that these atoms or these cells constitute reality, or rather the sole reality? The way in which these cells are rearranged and from which results the unity of the individual, is not it also a reality much more interesting than that of the isolated elements, and should a naturalist who had never studied the elephant except by means of the microscope think himself sufficiently acquainted with that animal?" - - Henri Poincare, 'The Value of Science,' originally published in 1913, translated by George Bruce Halstead, Cosimo Classics, ISBN: 978-1-60206-504-8, p.21.

Cheers,

jcns

Hi J.C.N Smith,

Its another good one, well found.

I find it interesting that increasing in scale and complexity of pattern also affects how the arrangement is able to interact with its environment.The variety of ways in which it can interact seems to increase with complexity. The size of the impact on the immediate environment increases with scale. (Though shape (as form is related to function) and populations also need consideration.)

Dear George:

Thanks for replying to my post on Free Will. I have responded to your comments on my paper under my posting - " From Absurd to Elegant Universe". Please let me know if I addressed all your comments/questions satisfactorily.

I agree with your statement -" ..I do not believe it is manifested by particles in themselves. Quantum uncertainty is not the same as free will". Quantum uncertainty is caused by measurement error or incapability to measure a quantum phenomenon, while Free Will is only possible because of the certainty of the universal laws. If the laws were uncertain, no free will is possible because it will be all chaos without certain laws. Often, the certainty of the laws is confused or mistaken with Determinism or fixed fate. Both the free willed input and laws determine the outcome or fate, which is not fixed in advance.

Regards

Avtar

Dear George:

Thanks for replying to my post on Free Will. I have responded to your comments on my paper under my posting - " From Absurd to Elegant Universe"

Please let me know if I addressed all your comments/questions satisfactorily.

Regards

Avtar

Thank you for your interesting article, it is some days that I thinking to it.

I think that the top-down causation can be a strong experimental-theoretical instrument to analyze the quantum effect in a macroscopic structure; I think to amplify the little scale effect using the cooperative effect like an instrument (cooperative microscope).

It is only an idea (I speak not like an expert), but I think it is possible to measure the halo of the strong force in a single stable heaviest atomic nuclei (narrow atomic layer) using neutron beams (with different energy).

In alternative, I think that can be possible to use the superfluid liquid helium to measure the strong force in an indirect way, measuring the large scale effect of some macroscopic quantity; if the mathematical model is correct, then the macroscopic measure must be correct: the model must be include the large scale effect, and the little scale effect.

Saluti

Domenico