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

Hello George, great job on the essay, and thank you for participating. I was surprised that you didn't specifically mention rescuing free will, as this seems to be what you are getting at in the section on state vector preparation. An experimenter's brain/body, in choosing a polarization angle for example, is imposing top-down causation upon the apparatus and ultimately upon the micro systems prepared, correct?

I couldn't help noticing similarities between your diagrams 1/6/7 and Figure 1 in my essay, which is based on a graphical formalism developed by Bob Coecke at Oxford. I tried to come up with a sketch for a top-down causation mechanism by tracing the flow of contextual information, where complex systems impose context-specific boundary conditions upon measurement events, thereby generating further-enriched complexity in the process. This results in a universe of ever-increasing complexity. I hope you have the time to give it a look.

George

"A sensible view is that the entities at each classical level of the hierarchy (Table 1) are real"

While this reflects the normal, and indeed practical, view of physical reality, it is ontologically (physically) incorrect. Because certain existent, but superficial, physical characteristics are deemed to constitute any given 'it' (eg computer, you, etc). That 'it' is then thought to remain in existence, albeit with changes occurring to it, until one or more of the defining characteristics is no longer manifest. However, this just depicts reality at a higher level than the actuality, though it could be correct, in itself, at that level. Physically, that 'it' is a sequence of physically existent states. The higher level of differentiation just giving the appearance of less change than there physically is, and the illusion of a level of persistence to existence which does not physically occur.

For physical reality to occur, and alter, there must ultimately be a physically existent state at any given point in time. This can be defined as the state of the properties of the elementary particles involved, and their spatial position, as at that point in time. So there is a "fixed set of lower level entities". And, by definition, any "event" could be tracked back to alterations at that level. That is, physically it must be 'bottom up'.

The point here is that while that is physically what occurs, we could never establish it in such detail, and would probably all go mad trying. So, we conceptualise up some levels. But we must maintain ontological/physical correctness about the direction of the process. What is ultimately causing alteration in the properties of elementary particles and hence a change in their spatial position is another issue.

Another point to bear in mind that what exists is a present (ie that which was physically existent as at a given point in time). Previous existences have ceased (the past) as at that point in time. Successive existences (the future) do not exist. In other words, one does not affect the future, what happens is that a present occurs which is different to the one which would have otherwise done so.

Paul

John

There is a presumption in here that, to put it simply, the future can be affected. Which it cannot. Because it does not exist, and is therefore not available to be affected. Or put another way, "reactions" are just the next set of "actions". The brain, etc is irrelevant to physical existence.

Paul

JCN

"This of course does not rule out reversibility at the microscopic, thermodynamic level of a gas, for example"

Of course it does. Physical alteration occurs, it cannot then be reversed. The sequence can involve a subsequent state which is identical to a previous one, but that is not reversal.

Paul

Paul,

Since present is cause to future effect, it is affected. If I was to break a leg today, it would certainly affect what I will be doing tomorrow.

"Reactions" may be just the next set of "actions," but notice you included the plural. The action, as we tend to perceive it, is singular, while the environmental reactions to it are plural. The feedback from a complex environment to a simple action is complex.

The brain evolved out of physical existence and is a reflection of it, thus both time and temperature are foundational to its functions.

George, this is just a wonderful piece of work, far worthier of more honor than any prize competition could bestow. I suppose that should come as no surprise -- if anyone were capable of distilling the history and dynamics of the entire universe into 10 pages, it would be you.

" ... life would not be possible without a well-established local arrow of time." So well put. And "Emergence of genuine complexity is characterised by a reversal of information flow from bottom up to top down." If you get a chance to vist my essay site, I would hope to convince you that both conditions are satisfied by topological orientability in a coordinate-free locally realistic model.

Again, thanks for this great paper.

Tom

Paul,

With apologies to Professor Ellis for what probably is a distraction from the main point of his essay, insofar as it may bear at least tangentially on his topic I will reply to your post here, but if we wish to pursue this debate further we should move the discussion to one of our own blogs. You wrote:

"The sequence can involve a subsequent state which is identical to a previous one, but that is not reversal."

This is the thing you've never appeared to comprehend, Paul. According to my view of time (which I believe is consistent with Julian Barbour's view, in this regard at least), a particular time is identically equivalent to a particular configuration of the universe. This is my preferred wording of the concept which Barbour expresses by stating that "The relative configurations, or shapes, of the Universe do not occur at instants of time . . . they are the instants of time."

By this way of thinking, if the configuration of the universe were, hypothetically, to oscillate between two identically equivalent configurations, then time would oscillate between those two particular times. That said, however, things would get sticky because of the momentum involved in such an oscillation. The precise moments representing the end points of the oscillatory motion would be identically equivalent configurations and identically equivalent particular times. This sort of thing is easier to envision if we think of the universe as comprised entirely of three not-further-reducible billiard balls in a not-further-reducible shoebox.

I have no desire whatsoever to belabor this argument further, Paul, here or elsewhere, but if you insist on doing so, please pick another blog (yours or mine) where we may do so. Thanks.

jcns

John

"If I was to break a leg today, it would certainly affect what I will be doing tomorrow".

Yes, the present that subsequently occurs is different from what it would have been. But what it would have been never existed. The future does not exist, so you cannot affect it.

As above, reactions are the next actions, the fact that I used the plural form of these words is irrelevant. My point was a repetition of the above. While they can be depicted as reactions, there is no form of reversal of physical existence. Everything could be described as a reaction to something.

Brains are physically existent, not a "reflection" of it, so are eyes, ears, etc. We are not somehow external to physical existence. What is different in sentient organisms that they possess a processing capability that enables them to be aware of the physical existence.

Paul

JCN

As requested I will copy this and a response across to my blog, but hopefully people will follow that, because there is not much point in us two having a repeat of previous exchanges amongst ourselves.

Paul

Dear Professor Ellis,

Your meticulously crystal clear cogent reasoned essay seems to me to be one of the more superior reads of the essays published at this website so far. That said, I think the Universe is the simplest structuring emerging. There is and ever will be only one Universe once although it seem to be having three differing aspects only one of which is seeing appearing. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my essay, Sequence Consequence, identical snowflakes have never existed so it is reasonable to assume that identical physical states cannot ever exist. I contend that when you pressed down the letter A on your computer keyboard, the A you produced on your computer screen was not only minutely different from all of the other A's on your computer screen, it would also have to be different than any other A that has ever appeared on any computer screen in the past, different than any A presently appearing on any computer screen located anywhere on earth, and also different than any A that will ever appear on any computer screen that will ever become operational in the future. There is only one of anything once in the one real Universe once. Each one of anything will seem to be having three aspects only one of which one can see here and now.

Dear Professor Ellis,

We are in between the bottom up and top down approaches of information flow. Relativistic universe is in a constant flux of this information flow and it is in an infinite feed back loop. Conscience is both at the absolute center and outer periphery of the universe (holographic effect). We as individual beings are caught in between these two equivalent states (singularity) and percieve the relativistic universe as a virtual reality.

Please see the essay

Conscience is the cosmological constant.

Love,

Sridattadev.

George,

Thank you for the link. While I haven't read it, from the preface it would seem to be the topic you presented in your Nature of Time entry. While I was in basic agreement with the premise, the problem I have is that the past is not, physically, or perceptually, unchanging. To quote from my own entry in this contest, " While we naturally think of the entire universe as proceeding from its universal past into its universal future, with this present as a stage on that vector, those prior and subsequent stages do not physically exist and the material by which they were manifested has been cycled back into other forms. It is as though the thread of time is being woven from strands frayed off from what had previously been woven and the past ultimately becomes as unknowable as the future."

To summarize; the continual creation of past events doesn't push the present into the future, rather it pushes prior events further into the past, thus ever changing our relative temporal position to those events. While they cannot be changed in their own context, any relevant perception of them continues to evolve, as does any physical remnants of actions which occurred.

As I see it, the present isn't physically moving along a vector from past to future, but that the changing configuration of what exists, collapses future potential into past circumstance.

Paul,

Rather than clutter up George's thread with our discussions, I'll take those points over to your thread.

Dear Professor Ellis,

You wrote, "The degree of complexity that can arise by bottom-up causation alone is strictly limited. Sand piles, the game of life, bird flocks, or any dynamics governed by a local rule . . . do not compare in complexity with a single cell or an animal body. The same is true in physics: spontaneously broken symmetry is powerful . . . but not as powerful as symmetry breaking that is guided top-down to create ordered structures (such as brains and computers). Some kind of coordination of effects is needed for such complexity to emerge"

While I'm aware of the stringent constraints on the length of our essays, your essay appears to cry out for some discussion of how your ideas square with the concept of Darwinian natural selection. We're familiar with the top-down influence which created computers, but what top-down influence created brains? I'd welcome your thoughts on these points.

Your essay recalled to my mind the following words of David Deutsch: ". . . everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge. . . . This is the cosmic significance of explanatory knowledge --and hence of people, whom I shall henceforward define as entities that can create explanatory knowledge." ('The Beginning of Infinity, p. 56)

Thank you again for an excellent essay!

jcns

George

Rather than respond to all that as such, let me express it so:

Having eradicated all metaphysical possibilities, we have two knowns: 1 Physical existence is independent of sensory detection. 2 Physical existence involves alteration. This means physical existence is a sequence, and that can only occur one at a time, because the successor cannot occur unless the predecessor ceases. In other words, there is a definite physically existent state as at any given point in time (timing, a point in time, ie the unit of timing, that being the fastest rate of change in reality).

What was physically existent as at any given point in time, is known as the present. Difference involves: 1) substance (ie what it was), 2) order (ie order of occurrence), 3) frequency (ie the rate at which differences occur. That is, the number of changes, irrespective of type, which occurred in any given sequence, compared to any other number that occurred meanwhile. The latter could be in any sequence (including the former), and either occurred concurrently, or otherwise. This is timing.

Now, this involves a vanishingly small degree of change and duration, but it must be so. Otherwise physical existence cannot occur. The key point here being that it reveals the falsity of attributing the concept of time to being a characteristic of a reality (ie a physically existent state). It is concerned with the difference between realities, not of a reality. Physically, there is alteration, and the timing system calibrates the rate at which change of any type occurs.

Paul

PS: I will have a look at your ref to time