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

Dear Mr. George Ellis,

I found your essay very late, so I please you that you give opinions about my essay, although it is end of the contest.

You wrote that cosmological time arrow is top-down effect. This is also my idea, written in my article, section 6.

I agree also that the mach principle exists, thus that Newton's bucket can be explained.

I suggest also conscious decisions. They are also top-down causation.

Similar ideas of top-down causation were written also by Mrs. Walker on this forum.

Best regards, Janko Kokosar

Thanks Tom for this very positive comment, much appreciated.

george

Hello Mr Singh, It is a message of wisdom.

I beleive that the crisis can be solved in centralizing the competences. But if and only if the universal determinism is the torch of researchs and studies. The sciences, rational and foundamental have the solutions, so why?

is it a probelm of hormons and unconsciousness due to this papper governing our lifes. The equilibriums can be reached if we act globally in a pure spherization of all spheres. The social high spheres also can be optimized with wisdom.

I see the universal consciousness , complex and simple.If we take this infinite light above our walls, without motion. and if we consider that this infite consciousness so has created a physical sphere with spheres of light in motion becoming mass due to their intrinsic codes. So this universal sphere is like a project.Our physical consciousness evolves , like babies of this phsyical 3D sphere and its intrinsic quantum spheres and cosmological spheres.

I agree indeed, it lacks in the high spheres this universal consciousness.Perhaps it is due to our young age at this universal scale.13.7 to 15 billions years, it is young still.I beleive that the hour is serious and that it is time to act in a pure universal way globally speaking. The earth is near an add of several possible chaotical exponentials. I ask me how it is possible knowing our potential of resolution of major probelms. I don't understand the human nature. It is bizare. We have the solutions and we do not put them into practice. How is it possible ?

You know Mr Singh, I beleive simply that the most important is to be universal and determinsitic and foundamental respecting our universal physical laws. We have so many tools around us. The solutions, global exist.

The consciousness indeed is an important parameter.It is even an essential when we play with this entire universal enrgy, this entropy present in all things at its maximaum paradoxal. Just a part is sufficient. This entropy is even infinite when we unify both of system, the physical sphere and its spheres and the pure light infinite above our walls. The aether is this entropy. The free will more this consciousness give harmonious parameters of spherization instead of chaotical parameters.

Thankig you Mr Singh

Regards

Mr. Ellis how can you use the pieces or detached observations to explain the totality regarding causation?... to understand the whole, one must consider the whole? right or wrong?

It seems like a central issue in the Top Down view would be the Necessity of particular Building Blocks with specific properties - not just the possibility, so the Top Down can match the Bottom Up - without any 'coupling constants' to fiddle with. Perhaps the universe just seems to be 'finely tuned' because of the way equations are defined. And QM ignores the expansion of the universe anyway, and that curious seeming fact that Photons lose energy in expansion, but fermions do not lose their rest energy, and Hydrogen remains invariant. Which makes me wonder why there is so much emphasis on Quantum Gravity rather than the simpler problem of uniform expansion. Einstein describes it rather than explaining how it is possible. It probably can not be explained geometrically, but needs details of what the vacuum actually is - without the 'useful simplifications' like a background space. Perhaps one possibility is that relationships of elementary oscillator objects given by a direct product already include spacetime relations, as if the direct product has a 'lifetime' and then disappears, and thus bulk spacetime is being continually recreated.

Hi George,

I read the Coveney and Highfield book when it first came out, and I just pulled it from the shelf for another read, on your recommendation. I note the year of publication is 1990, which reminded me of another favorite from that year, Kafatos and Nadeau, *The Conscious Universe* (the revision in 2000 was even better). I think interdisciplinary research that has hovered strongly in the background for a couple of decades is ready to flower.

Best,

Tom

Warm greeetings Dr. Ellis why are gravity and inertia equivalent?

Tom,

thanks for that reference - I'll look for it.

Anonymous,

not sure what the point is. The universe is a particular realization of what is potentially possible. It is changeable in that it is evolving, but it then takes on a definite form. We understand that form quite well, but we are basically guessing when we try to understand *why* it takes the form it does. It depends what you mean by "understood".

Elizabeth,

Einstein's great discovery in this regard is that the effects of acceleration and of a uniform gravitational field are identical: local experiments can't distinguish them. To show this he considered a closed laboratory at rest in the Earth's Gravitational field of 1g, and the same laboratory in a rocketship far from any gravitational field but now accelerating at 1g due to the rocket motors. In both cases if you drop an apple you'll measure it to accelerate towards the floor at the rate of 1g per second per second. Thus acceleration and gravity equivalent in terms of their physical effects. What this means is that gravity is a different force from all other forces. The underlying reason is that the inertial and gravitational mass of a body are the same, no matter what the body is made of (Galileo's great discovery); if this was not true you could distinguish gravity from inertia by dropping objects made of different matter.

For more in depth discussion, you can look at my book Flat and Curved Spacetimes, written with Ruth Williams.

George Ellis

Understanding the complexity certainly seems to depend a lot on the existence of Protons in Bondi's Bus Ticket. In a sense, by usual geometric standards, protons should be just as pointlike as electrons. In other words - Dirac should have been right, if one believes that a Clifford Algebra is the last word on physically reasonable geometry. But since protons are not that pointlike, something in the Odd sector of the algebra must be different from Dirac algebra, while leaving the Even sector as is. One might then suspect that Einstein could have some serious problems whenever the internal structure of protons becomes an issue at crazy densities in collapse or the early Bang, where one might expect quark-gluon plasma. In some sense the structure of 3-space breaks down, or the rotational invariance that Pauli assumes breaks down. Maybe in the most extreem case, instead of the Pauli matrices forming a vector, we get something like 3 uncoordinated oscillators, and even pointlike electrons are broken up. So a Black Hole could have all the oscillators that fell into it, they would just not 'self organize' into electrons and protons, unless space is big enough for rotational invariance to hold. Another possibility comes from seeing that Pauli Algebra can be generated by +++ or +--. The latter is not a Pauli spin vector, but is algebraically reasonable - perhaps only inside a black hole, or "before the Bang".

Re both the last postings:

this is getting into deep territory and interesting that is outside my proper domain of expertise.

Just one comment: "It probably cannot be explained geometrically, but needs details of what the vacuum actually is": this is of course the kind of thing that is involved in the landscape of string theory: the very nature of particles is dependent on the context of the specific string vacuum in which they are realised. This theory may or may not be true, but in any case it is an example of the kind of contextual effect I have been talking about.

George

Returning to an old theme:

"An Extended Synthesis for Evolutionary Biology" by Massimo Pigliucci confirms how the present understanding of evolutionary theory emphasizes how "emergent properties of biological systems provide an additional (not a substitute) mechanism to generate potentially adaptive complex phenotypes.... This accommodation by a developmental system of perturbations originating from either the external or the internal (genetic) environment is a necessary consequence of the inherent plasticity of living organisms."

In other words top down causation changes the nature of the organisms selected by evolution. It's a key part of adaptive selection in biology.

George

Hello George,

If you have the time and desire, might you respond to this (reproduced from a post at my essay site)?

While browsing *The Demon and the Quantum* by Robert Scully and Marlan Scully (good book - recommended)I came across (p. 148)a marvelous quote by George Ellis. Robert Scully relates that at a conference, Ellis was asked: "Do we need quantum mechanics to ensure free will?" Ellis is reported to have answered in a Zen koan-like manner: "On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I think not. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I think so."

Scully used the quote to support his contention that nobody knows " ... is classical chaos enough to provide freedom of choice, i.e., free will?" I think he missed the point of George's reply (which I am going to ask George himself to confirm or deny, in this forum) for the following reason:

Just a short number of pages prior (pp 130-132), Scully had noted that the quantum eraser proposed by Marlan Scully and Kai Druhl that when published in 1982 'shook the physics community' in the words of Aharonov and Zubairy " ... underscores the statement (that) information is a physical quantity. That is, information is real and the utilization of information is what the quantum eraser is all about."

In his figure 9.6, p 131, Scully shows the wavelike correlation between erased potential and detected information (which corresponds to figure 2 in my essay).

That is the single message of classical chaos, Wheeler delayed choice, and the quantum eraser: Information is real. I think that the opportunity Scully missed is in realizing that George's comment could only have come from a physicist so steeped in relativity that no other answer than "yes" is possible. We need the continuous measurement function equally with discrete quantum detection to have complete information -- and objective knowledge -- of the evolving state. What do you think, George?

All best,

Tom

Hello George,

On your comment "Actually rather than octonions I'd go for geometric algebra", perhaps you should read my essay; The Algebra of "Everything". I just squeaked in as a finalist at #33. You might change your mind about Octonion Algebra. You will see that Electrodynamics from potential functions through conservation equations are covered exactly as expected within an Octonion structure, as a subset of the presentation. The algebra demands this once you accept the simple fact that there is no preferred structure amongst the 16 ways to roll out a normed division algebra with consistent H subalgebras. This realization requires what I call algebraic invariance, and it not coincidence that all differential equations explaining physical observables are algebraically invariant when cast in an Octonion construction. This I call law without apology. This law demands the full set of entries in the Octonion equivalent of the stress-energy-momentum tensor divergence, nothing in the 14 pages it consumes when written out is inserted by hand, and nothing more is likely needed. The law with the proper form of differentiation I call the Ensemble Derivative demands the form of Lorentz covariance we all know and love with the simple requirement that both pieces of each EM field component velocity transform in kind.

Me, I am not big on coincidences. If someone thinks all this might be, then as Ricky said to Lucy: "Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do".

You do not get any of this from geometric algebra. I like the symmetry of multiplication and division, something else you do not get with geometric algebra which is not a division algebra.

This all fits into your top-down premise. The Algebra drives the lower level from above.

Rick

George, you have good intuition. The Jung-Pauli letters (Atom & Archetype) is a book I have owned since it was first published here in the States, and though I have browsed it, I cannot say I have read it. I acquired it at a time when I thought that I was through with philosophy, and issues of free will and consciousness, forever. I had studied Damasio, and became convinced that Cartesian dualism is successfully falsified. I was impressed with Marvin Minsky, and reconciled to a belief that a computer made of meat is not the worst thing to be.

Long ago -- I cannot remember where, nor all the details -- I read a story about Pauli who, when his death was imminent, got into a discussion with another prominent scientist about what lay ahead and whether a personal god might exist. At the end of the conversation, Pauli was convinced of the belief that he held prior -- no, no personal god -- yet unconvinced, IIRC, that the journey was over. As Einstein said at Godel's death, that "stubbornly persistent illusion" -- the one that seems to tell us that a life, and time itself, has an ordered beginning, middle and end -- has no real place in physics.

If information is real, though, we're all already as dead as we're ever going to be, and consciousness cannot be excluded from physical reality. If "all physics is local" (Einstein) and if " ... life would not be possible without a well established local arrow of time" (Ellis) -- there is no dead physics either. "Do not send to ask for whom the bell tolls," as the great metaphysical poet John Donne put it.

Thanks for the reference to your earlier post. I'm finding it hard to keep up. I think your summary paragraph is bang on:

"One of the deepest questions underlying physics is 'Why variational principles?' If the dynamics is viewed as resulting from such a process of selection of a particular path from the set of all paths, there is a glimmer of hope for an explanation of this foundational feature, based in adaptive selection. This is one of the key forms of top-down action from the context to the local system, because selection takes place on the basis of some specific predetermined selection criterion, which is therefore (because it determined the outcome) at a higher causal level than that of the system behaviour being selected for."

I very strongly agree. I think a whole lot of complex systems thinking is going this way, and most importantly, the result settles the question of local realism -- for a robust simply connected network does not require all of its elements to be "switched on" everywhere at once to be functional. Because a fully relativistic system is self limiting both locally and globally, local arrows of time are self similar to the global; there is no distinction, no boundary between self limiting topological networks (local behavior selected for) and "the experiment not done" described by Peres as nonlocal. There just can't be any nonlocal information in a fully relativistic theory; all measure results are metaphysically real. Probabilistic quantum theory that assigns value to nonlocality can only either 1) assume perfect information in a mystical way, or 2)refuse to deal with the issue at all and accept incompleteness.

I have found a tremendous amount of meaning in Yaneer Bar-Yam's theory of multi-scale variety: "In considering the requirements of multi-scale variety more generally, we can state that for a system to be effective, it must be able to coordinate the right number of components to serve each task, while allowing the independence of other sets of components to perform their respective tasks without binding the actions of one such set to another." ("Multiscale Variety in Complex Systems." Complexity vol 9, no 4, pp 37-45 2004). Distributed control -- lateral information introduced into the system -- increases variety. Increased variety increases the coordination strength of the network, so vertical information (hierarchical up and down) isn't sufficient to overcome the problem of bounded rationality. If one might find it useful to the discussion, I covered these issues in a 2007 conference paper and powerpoint

Do we need quantum mechanics to ensure free will?

"On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I think not. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I think so." How could it not be? Our brains process information discretely, yet we -- and the participating universe, as Wheeler says -- experience life continuously.

Sorry for being so longwinded.

Best wishes,

Tom