George,
The top/down bottom/up view of our existence (life) and the mathematics that govern these two very real physical information paths, possibly already exists. Surely the mathematicians have stepped further up the unification trail, albeit a bit blinded to what may actually physically be described when steering through their mathematic rigor. This implies that the mathematics to describe top/down & bottom/up paths of transmitting physical information may already exist and are currently being utilized for highly localized information transfer studies.
Recall the many transmit & receive experiments performed in information reflective chambers. These experiments are generally performed in a closed chamber having random scattering centers filling the volume & the enclosed chambers have a reflective outer wall. Consider acoustic information transfer performed in a acoustic chamber w/ localized acoustic scattering centers filling the volume of the chamber with the chamber having acoustic reflecting walls. This also works with light as the information source having electromagnetic scattering centers within the volume and chamber walls that reflect this radiation. Imagine that you line up a few electric dipole antennas and place them in very close proximity to one another inside this chamber (consider each dipole a communicating life form).... and let one of the dipoles "chirp - ie., dipole transmits information." In the chamber we have multiple scattering centers reflecting the "chirp." By placing many detectors in the chamber we can listen to the time delayed, multiply scattered reflections that originated at the exact location of the one dipole that chirped. The scattering & reflections then dampen out. If we recorded the time dependent amplitude and phase that each detector reads, then, play back this record in the chamber as the time reversed, recorded image of each detector...... a period of time after time reversed signals are emitted, the single antenna that let out the original "chirp" - but is now a switched to a listener - receives a chirp w/ NONE of the other local dipoles (also configured as a listeners) getting any information at all. It is as if diffraction -information spread- did not take place for the time reversed signals that reformed the chirp pulse at the "exact" physical location the chirp pulse originally emanated......
If we consider information from the chirp expanding outward "reductionist" information then we can possibly call the time reversed information broadcast from the detectors the "encoded" holistic information return path. Processing had to occur in the recording detectors to precisely store, then time reverse and emit information that is to be delivered back to the exact location of the single antenna that chirped.
That above implies that the time reversal of information requires one to record and process information prior to making a concerted effort with others to interact back with a single source. Think of all the recorders in the chamber as either neurons (within confines of skull), individual persons (in confines of the atmosphere), a cell (in the confines of a cell wall, etc.,) and all of these enclosures must also follow the same concerted procedure to deliver concise information back to every highly localized source within the chamber.
Each recorder has unique information requiring each to play back in a time reversed order to excite the single emitter (emitter and listener - reciprocity), and, each recorder must playback their time reversed information at precisely the correct moment. This implies holistic information resembles a record, time reverse then transmit process to target a single listener (ie., just like these antenna). Since each listener is "encoded by an exact detector location in the chamber" we can then do things like attempt to correlate a genetic code to each listener's pre-programmed, time dependent, concerted efforts with others, etc., positional responses.
Encoded listeners acting as a coordinated team of time reverse transmitters transmitting information that superimposes to target very local regions of space. Like the concerted effort of particle physicists attempting to gather information about the Big Bang singularity (holistic) with each physicist being depended by others for having a novel, personal, input (reductionist information from within).
Who knows? Cheers!
Best regards,
Tony