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

George,

Although I agree with your overall point, I note that your "Hypothesis", as stated, is self-contradictory:

"Hypothesis: bottom up emergence by itself is strictly limited in terms of the complexity it can give rise to. Emergence of genuine complexity is characterized by a reversal of information flow from bottom up to top down."

The "reversal of information flow", is well known to occur in many instances, as you note. Indeed, it is so well known, that we have a special word for it - "feedback".

In the context of your essay, if "bottom up emergence" is "strictly limited", then "feedback" processes would have never "emerged" in the first place. "Feedback" is the mechanism by which bottom up processes add top down ones, to their repertoire. It is the cause, the mechanism for emergence. The existence of bottom up processes is necessary to the existence of top down ones.

George,

Your comment that: "feedback ...is not the only type... a very important one is adaptive selection... feedback control cannot lead to that result.", implies that adaptive selection is an example of "top down causation", but not "feedback."

Others employ a much broader definition of "feedback" than you imply. Almost all modern communications signals employ a form of feedback, known in the literature as "decision directed feedback", that is what you are calling "adaptive selection". Instead of simply feeding-back an output into the input, they exploit a priori knowledge, to feedback what the emitter must have "intended to send", rather than what was actually received. They determine what was "intended to be sent", by adaptively selecting their "best guess" from an a priori known list of allowable possibilities; a limited "alphabet".

As you say, such processes do indeed exist and have causal powers. Indeed, processes like Decision Directed Feedback are a major causal power for why an HDTV picture is so much cleaner than older TVs.

I read today the article of Walker and Davies, that you recommend in this blog.

I think that the first organisms, on the Earth, can have contained a unique mixed genetic code: dna+rna in the same helix.

The same structure can contain the hardware, and the software: for example a mechanical clock (or astrolabe) is built to carry out some functions, and there is not a software, because the planner have the software (the idea).

Is it possible that analogic mechanism with great complexity can self-replicating, in an environment that give the right substances? I think that each sensor, and function, can be made in analogic, then a self-replicating robot can be made; but is this a life form? There is self-replication, there is evolution (because of the construction error), but there is not software (only a mechanical structure that make a task); it is possible that the robot can make alternative tasks (I think some nanotechnologic machines self-replicating with elementary chemical and that make some tasks): the problem is that there is not a code (DNA) but a structure.

It is interesting to try a test for life like the Turing test (top-down life test): an artificial ant (with the same external function of an ant) can be recognized like an artificial ant (without dissection)?

It is possible to built, with supercomputer, self-replicant program (that self-write in some memory location, isolated from external environment) more and more complex, until to obtain an artificial life (like game of life) of great complexity (artificial software microorganism like virus, or better bacteria), where the artificial environment make the selection (top-down selection); only the real interaction (with sensor and mechanism) permit to obtain an artificial life (artificial insect) without self-replication.

I think that can be possible to build artificial robots (nanotechnology) using complex chemical reaction (bottom-up construction), using some automatic robots to try chemical reaction to simulate different complex chemical reaction (in a far future can be possible the computer simulation of different chemical reaction to built life); I think that can be possible alternative chemical reaction to obtain life (without organic chemistry): the Universe is great, so if it is possible an alternative chemical reaction to obtain life, then in the Universe these reactions happen (I am sure for the elementary process, not until the life creation).

Saluti

Domenico

George,

Yep, I've changed my mind again. This is the best essay. Another top down phenomena.

And you have made this the most interesting thread I have seen on FQXi. It deserves an award all by itself.

Don Limuti

PS: Check out: http://www.digitalwavetheory.com/DWT/44_The_Arrow_of_Time.html

Hi George. You will see many of your ideas relate to mine (in different/linked ways) in my essay -- soon to be posted.

FUNDAMENTAL gravitational and inertial equivalency and balancing fundamentally sits at the heart of physics, and it demonstrates/proves F=ma fundamentally as well. George, do you agree with this statement?

Gravity sits at the heart of fundamental/general unification in physics. My essay proves this. Do you agree with this?

I would appreciate your rating and comments on my essay -- soon to be posted. Thanks. You are remakably silent given all that I have said in this thread. Yours is a necessary essay and topic/subject. My essay is foundational on waking AND dream physics -- and the link between the two is proven.

Thank you for your essay.

I think that the life can be a bottom-up process with a simple starting point.

It is possible, in biology, to search the minimal chemical structure capable to reproduce itself; it is possible to insert this process in a noisy system (with radiation, thermal noisy, etc.) so that the reproduction is not perfect, then there is evolution, a continuous change of the structure that become ever more complex, until the life.

It is possible, in computer science, to write the minimal program capable to reproduce itself; it is possible to add noise in the write process (imperfect drive, low quality discs, etc.), after some time (in parallel computer it is possible to accelerate the process) it is possible to obtain artificial life; if there are self-reproducing programs (so that there is program interactions in the environment), then is there a ethical life (programs that interact well with other programs)?

Is the life connect with the self-reproduction?

Some animal cannot reproduce (for example mule, or some pandas), so that are these not life? If in the world happen (thought experiment) a virus that destroy the possibility to reproduction of the human being, then the human being is not more life?

Is it possible to recognize the microbial cyst like life? There is not metabolism, movement, all the characteristics of the life.

It is complex, in a bottom-up test, and in a top-down test, recognize the life.

I write these thoughts because seem (to me) interesting on the biological side.

Saluti

Domenico

Prof. Ellis,

Interesting essay. I think I may agree with you, but am not sure. In my theory (recent sketch here and essay here), General Relativity can be rewritten so as to have a causal background (i.e. curvature doesn't mean action at a distance). Please feel free to comment if we are speaking of the same thing in causal backgrounds that are top down (least complex to most).

Regards,

Jeff

There might be another way to look at this - structurally rather than in terms of causation. If allowed associations of particles are determined by (non associative) algebra, that would change the way one looks at bound states as determined by 'forces' - not that one gets rid of photons, but that photons have to be consistent with the associations demanded by algebra. The issue being that we would not expect pure algebra to know anything about coupling constants or 'fine tuning'. If associations are more fundamental, then forces have to be consistent with what is demanded structurally .. for example e(uud).

Algebra does not seem to take a position on reductionism or teleology, or demand that causation be bottom up. But if we say that algebra requires that the universe produce hydrogen - that looks 'top down' or teleological - then the 'constants' must be compatible with the future existence of stable atoms, even if the early universe is too hot. One might say that the universe Must cool off or else it can not produce what algebra presumably demands. And if it applies to simple associations like Hydrogen, one might expect that DNA is just a more elaborate association. Perhaps all stable-neutral associations are given apriori. That would give us a very Top Down view of the world, but rather intractable, given the complexity and subtlety.

Dear Professor Ellis,

I found your papers about top-down causation very interesting, and the present essay inspiring. I think there are strong parallels between how causation may "propagate" from "top" toward "down", and the relation between quantum measurements and reality. I hope I will return here with details about this. IMHO, there are two main factors that shaped the "standard" perception of causation. First, we perceive the things as simultaneously present in the "now", and the correlations between various events make us believe that there is a causal connection from past to future, from parts to whole, from simple to complex. This was reinforced by the success of the second factor: the fact that when solving equations describing the time evolution, we usually start with initial conditions at a time t, and are able to develop the solution for subsequent times. In addition, the effects appear as propagating in a local manner. Correlations appear to us as cause-effect connections, because of their succession in time. They appear to us as bottom-up causation, because the interactions are local. The local constraints are given by the equations, and are correct. But the more global aspects of causation are unfairly much less researched, and much less understood.

I dare to hope that you would take a glance at my essay, which is not connected to these aspects, but to the properties of singularities in general relativity.

Best wishes,

Cristi Stoica

Dear Prof Ellis,

I enjoyed your article and it gives me heart for my own project.

The next question (if the Universe started as something very simple) is how do we get a "top" to cause down from, how does a simple system bootstrap itself into a complex one, ie how does entropy (and corrresponding information) increase?

Your approach opens the way to an anwser I see: that random (symmetric) processes sometimes become concatenated into more complex processes which are capable of controlling their own foundations to ensure their own continued existence. This "algorithm" may work at all levels of complexity, and so is able to take us from a very simple unitary system to systems of unlimited complexity.

Thank you,

Jeffrey (/1435)

Hi George,

Nice essay! I was expecting to find a complete refutation of reductionism but was pleasantly surprised to discover that we may actually agree on a few things. Notably, I prefer your definition of causality and have toyed with something similar myself. In particular, it provides for the possibility that entanglement is actually a causal phenomenon, just not in the way we normally expect. We seem to be stuck in this relativistic paradigm that insists that causality be defined by special relativistic limitations. Of course, if space and time are emergent (as I believe they are), then this would seem to be a poor way to define causality. Hence, I find a less theory-dependent definition such as yours to be more palatable.

Regarding boundary conditions, you make some excellent points and, indeed, the ultimate example of top-down causation also happens to be the ultimate boundary condition: the universe itself (even within the context of the multiverse - indeed, one could argue that physical laws are constrained by the universe for, if they were different, it wouldn't be the same universe). On the other hand, you say at one point that no real system is truly isolated (and, in principle, I tend to agree), but what about the universe as a whole? If there is no multiverse (an open question), then the universe truly is an isolated system.

With that said, I have some comments:

1. I think the computing example with Word and Photoshop is a bit oversimplified.

2. You mentioned "uncaused changes" at one point. Are you saying there is no such thing as randomness or do you accept that random outcomes can still be causal (just not deterministic)?

3. Regarding logic, one could argue that physics partly emerges from logic itself in which case it would not be particularly unusual to have higher-level logic dictating physical processes since, in some sense, logic may be even more fundamental and universal.

4. Why can't multiple processes/paths lead to the same conclusion? I fail to see why this is a bad thing. (This question/comment refers to point D on pp. 5-6).

5. You suggest that interactions are necessarily higher-level phenomena from particles themselves, but one could fairly easily argue that quantum field theory says that they are, in some sense, *more* fundamental than particles (or, at the very least, *as* fundamental).

6. I'm still unconvinced by argument 6e on p. 7.

Finally, while I agree that there is most definitely some top-down causality in the universe, I tend to think that, in general, it tends to "drift" upward, if you will, i.e. if you were to model causal flow as a process, it would be like a random walk with drift with the drift going from the simple to the more complex.

Cheers,

Ian Durham

Dear George,

In your reply you say "the word "create" has no meaning if there are no causes"

As I argued, if when there is a cause, to rationally understand it, we must be able to reduce it a previous cause, then this chain of cause-and-effect goes on ad infinitum, or it stops at some primordial cause which, as it cannot be reduced to a preceding cause, cannot be understood by definition, then nothing has any meaning since we cannot find its ultimate cause.

You still haven't pointed out what is wrong with this reasoning.

The problem is that a universe which has a cause, by definition has been created by some outside interference and violates the conservation law according to which what comes out of nothing must add to nothing.

If "the word "create" has no meaning if there are no causes" means that according to you a bigbang universe must have a cause, that is, has been created by some outside intervention, then this universe cannot be understood even in principle, so I'm afraid that the bigbang hypothesis a fairy tale.

In contrast, as I argue here (or, in this study), a self-creating universe has no cause and nor does it violate conservation laws as it has no physical reality as a whole: since in this universe particles create, cause one another, it can be understood rationally.

Anton

I see that the links in the above reply don't work: for the essay, see "Einsteins' error", for the study, see www.quantumgravity.nl

Anton