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My very brief and relatively uninformed comments are:

1. A lot depends on what you define as top and what you define as bottom. When society affects individuals, are individuals the bottom just because they're components of the larger? What if the society came first and then affected individuals born within it?

2. It seems like a lot of causation in complex systems can go both ways and sideways: bottom-top, top-bottom, top-top, bottom-bottom, etc.

3. Even in emergent systems like societies and living organisms, I think you could still define everything in a bottom-up way, but you'd have to have know exact starting positions, shapes, movements of all the things involved and would then need such a large computer to model all this so as to make this a near impossibility at least for the foreseeable future.

Those are my beginning thoughts. I'm sure some of you will be wanting to rip this to shreds, so have at it! Thanks!

  • [deleted]

"But to Ellis, this view of reality falls short. As he began reflecting on social policy in the 1970s, he saw a society that was profoundly influencing the individuals within it, and not the other way around. If societies influence brains - and, thanks to the new science of neural plasticity, modern neuroscientists can see this in action - then societies can also influence neurons, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles, taking us all the way down to the bottom of the physical hierarchy. Causation, Ellis saw, is not a one-way street: It goes from the top down just as easily as from the bottom up. Now, Ellis has distilled this idea in an essay for FQXI's 2012 "Questioning the Foundations" essay competition. Ellis' work, "Recognising Top-Down Causation," received second-prize honors."

Just truism disguised as science. How Ellis got second prize in a contest named "Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?" is a grand secret between FQXi judges.

Pentcho Valev

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Not that Robert Spekkens' essay on causal structure wasn't deserving of its first place prize -- I was personally convinced right up until the winners were announced that Ellis' would be first.

I can imagine that the judges had a fine time making up their minds between these starkly contrasting points of view. In retrospect, though, I think FQXi has shown a bias toward structural explanations for causality, from Garrett Lisi's E8 model onwards.

A framework that abandons a structured "first cause" for a complex network of causes where a system's top-down critical feedback influences bottom-up organization, appears to be closer to the way nature actually works. As Sara Walker notes, this is easily observed in the processes of living organisms.

There are two major things with which I disagree in George's and Sara's results. I don't think the wave function collapses, and I don't think there is any non-arbitrary distinction between organic and inorganic life. However, in what counts -- as a leading principle of causality -- that no specific structure underlies organization, we heartily agree. And I'm afraid I have to take Paul (*The Matter Myth*) Davies side on the question of mathematical rigor -- these complex dynamics have to be reduced to their abstract essentials before we can claim to understand them at the foundation. In the introduction to *The Matter Myth* Davies and co-author John Gribbin note, "It has been discovered that so called nonlinear effects can cause matter to behave in seemingly miraculous ways, such as becoming 'self-organizing' and developing patterns and structures spontaneously." Since the book was published in 1992, there has been a flowering of research in complex systems science that make the "miracles" tractable to rigorous models.

Tom

    • [deleted]

    Got logged out somewhow.

    • [deleted]

    A subsequent physically existent occurrence cannot physically affect a previously physically existent occurrence.

    A physically existent occurrence cannot physically affect a subsequent physically existent occurrence, because that cannot be in existence if the previous one is.

    In other words, the notion that the future can be affected is incorrect, because there is no future in existence to be affected, nor to have an effect. This false notion is based on the concept that existences which occurred at different times co-exist, which they do not. The idea of changing the future/the future can have a feedback, is based on the misconception that it is already existent, and hence potentially alterable, and/or capable of having some form of influence, which it is not.

    This concept is properly expressed, ie in accord with how physical existence occurs, as the circumstance where a physically existent state (ie effect) occurred which is different to what would otherwise have done so, had the causal factors been different. Which is meaningless, as by definition, that is what cause and effect is. What prevailed and became the cause of the next step in the sequence, was just different from any alternative which could have prevailed, but did not, and was therefore not the cause.

    The other important point to note is that the processing of physical input received, which results in a perception, has no effect on the physical circumstance. Physical existence is independent of the means whereby it is detected, and is not affected by that detection, or resultant perception, because it is independent and occurred previously. By definition, something must have occurred in order for it to then be received, and this processing is not a physical process anyway, since it des not involve alteration in physical form.

    4 days later
    • [deleted]

    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

      • [deleted]

      Tony

      How can "interact back with a single source" occur? What existed does not now do so, something different exists. It might appear to be the same as previously, but that is from the perspective of superficial physical attributes, not what constitutes its physical existence. Neither will any such action influence the future, because the future is non-existent. All it will do is influence what happens next, ie something will occur which is different from what otherwise might have occurred. But then so is every occurrence different from what might have been, because it is what occurred, rather than what might have done. In other words, what occurs is a function of whatever caused it, not all the possible alternatives which did not exist and were therefore could not be a cause.

      Paul

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      Paul,

      That above just establishes "the physical paths" that information takes. Information can come from a single entity and spread to the whole, or, encoded in the whole is an "encoded response - reverse time - path" in where the whole can transfer information to a single point in space - at some given future time. Causality was not mentioned, just the physical mechanisms used to transfer information to infintesimal points in space using the whole of listeners/emitters living in the same space - with NO propagation limiting diffraction affects that disperse this information (....sounds like Feynman's advanced wave property used in his resolving radiation reaction - the advanced wave travels with "not" obeying the standard dispersive laws of physics when propogating). Once each "chirping" dipole is recorded by the rest of the whole (encoded in a precise "reverse time response to "speak" w/ "each" single listener that is also a selective emitter - we - life- can speak and listen just like the dipole) we can then encode the entire volume of space to obtain the exact time dependent reverse time responses required for each individual "listener to the whole." (You bet cell phone companies are looking into this!)

      So now you have the code to each individual listener and you can do things like sending frequency modulated chirps back to it... which was done with 3 "closely placed" dipole antenna listeners in an article I recall (ie, first the three listeners chirped individually, and, were recorded by listeners(ie., encoded) then the information from each listener could be time reversed and played back to each dipole inddependently - different transmit codes for each listener). The three antenna encoded were used for the R, G and B signal for prodicing a bitmap image in HD that was broadcast from the Whole of listeners to these three individual antenna and the Bitmap image projected was a beautifully color image. This established that the whole can precisely speak to an individual w/o leaking information to others in a VERY LOCAL vacinity (where standard methods to propagate information would certainly be leaky to those in close proximity).

      Once the model of the physical information paths have been established, it becomes a matter of applying (correlating this information) to some real, measurable physical systems.... that for the system described above has been done many times and with many different physical information propagation paths (E&M, acoustic, etc.,). Could it apply to things like mitochondria existing within cell walls - are the walls coded to speak with each element within the cell? This has a holistic tone to it and does not really imply anything not being causal.....

      Regards,

      Tony

      • [deleted]

      Tony

      "That above just establishes "the physical paths" that information takes"

      It does not actually, it describes how cause and effect must occur. However, the simple response to this is: so what, physically, is this "information" you refer to?

      Paul

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      Paul,

      Everything you measure! This is the simplest answer to your question. Information derives itself from measures (ratioed measures to be more precise - like an illumination contrast measure .. on/off light intensities). In these experiments, maybe the measured reductionist physics does not behave properly when the whole transfers the ultimate in consise information to the single entity. Only the listening dipole hears - no other listening dipole (in VERY close proxmity) hears a smidgen of what was sent by the whole. Maybe we have a physically measurable holistic affect at work .... implying, coherent, coded, returned information emanating from the whole and arriving in a very NON reductionist, non dispersive fashion at an infintessimal point in space.

      All we ever really do is correlate ....

      Regards,

      Tony

        Tony

        Fine, but that is not physically existent, is it? It is a representaion thereof.

        In trying to counter what I said about the physical sequence of cause/effect you are asserting that 'information' has something to do with it. Which it cannot, because it is not physically existent.

        Paul

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        Paul,

        If I can measure (with information supplied by my 5 senses & with all the different, high precision metrology extentions to my senses that are at my disposal - then I am (am a measurer of course). These measures build my reality of physical information, as does yours and the information we agree apon we called science. The agreement comes from an accurate physical measure to prove a particular line of physical thought. The proof is in "measuring" someones pudding!! Therefore, we must get out the correct model to apply our physical measures and it is always derived from the "degrees of freedom" given for us to move from within, literally. This is Casmir's space on steroids and having physical boundaries that define the quantum mexchanics that is physically restricted to exist within the measurement space - whether a probablistic space or not! The information degrees of freedom rules for measuring are physically set at the boundary - these are the rules set by the quantum playing field! ...... to which we are all coupled to .... this is the information space from where our measured correlations are derived. Rules set at the boundary, and, encoded returns sent by the whole (line of experiments to infintessimally focus information) sounded correlated

        Science is all about correlated measures and we are the measure-ers. Time to pull out the meter stick and stop watch!

        Tony

        Tony

        As much as matters I agree with all that, and indeed as proof this is in my essay. In respect of knowledge/information and its relationship with reality, you are not telling me anything I do not already know.

        But none of that addresses my original point, which was:

        "How can "interact back with a single source" occur? What existed does not now do so, something different exists. It might appear to be the same as previously, but that is from the perspective of superficial physical attributes, not what constitutes its physical existence. Neither will any such action influence the future, because the future is non-existent. All it will do is influence what happens next, ie something will occur which is different from what otherwise might have occurred. But then so is every occurrence different from what might have been, because it is what occurred, rather than what might have done. In other words, what occurs is a function of whatever caused it, not all the possible alternatives which did not exist and were therefore could not be a cause" Or my post above that of 13/4 07.07.

        Information cannot 'override' the fundamental way in which reality occurs.

        Paul

        • [deleted]

        Paul,

        I had not intended to indicate anything about past and future, cause and effect ... I only speak of that information we physically measure - in the NOW. This is all we got to work with, and, we may have alternative, physical ways to represent it, ways in where holostic and reductionist information superimpose to produce the physical, measurable actions life performs to sustain itself in being a physical measurer - in the NOW. If "life" behaves like the dipole antenna/transmitter in these experiments, it may then be possible to consider alternative ways to represent information that life utilizes (through mathematical modeling). If each of our individual gene codes represents the encoding required to unlock the code that the universe utilizes to feed us individually with specific information (like the novel coding in the transmitters to target a single dipole with information).... maybe this can unlock the details of our individual immune systems responses .... provide Sara answers as to why biological physical measures show that reductionist biology is not an accurate representation of what is actually occuring .... etc.

        Mach was a proponent of holistic thought that also influenced Einstein. Maybe this is going on the same path (information path). Entanglement gives us tools to consider outragous possibilities on how the universe is connected up - and - life may just be the key here coupled through genetic coding?

        Best regards,

        Tony

          Tony

          "I only speak of that information we physically measure"

          We do not measure information, we measure something, which renders information. And yes one can only be, at least trying, to measure/discern the current existent state at the time that this activity was effected. And the representational devices used (narrative, graphic, math) are irrelevant so long as they correspond with what occurred.

          Everything thing effectively is a source of information, but if one does not limit the concept to 'representational of', then it becomes pointless.

          Entanglement gives you a basis for getting it wrong. The start point must be what constitutes the form of existence we can know and how does that occur, not what alternatives we can believe in. Have a look in Jochen essay blog & Mikalai blog, at my posts in order to save me repeating it & indeed I must now get off to do a day's building work

          Paul

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          Paul,

          You say "Entanglement gives you a basis for getting it wrong?" Wow, that's a pretty doomed outlook from someone attempting to gain knowledge. The Feynman-inan would now have to say that you should give much thanks to the basis that shares - for without it - we have NO molecular states and everything would be confined to atomic form ... a very local place to hang out rather that molecularily expanding! You may be discarding holistic (George's top/down) by discounting entanglement, and, when life is eventually recognized as that what is "entangled," you place yourself in an un-shared world when I assure you that you physically share it with ~ 7 Billion folks living rather locally.

          Anyway - this is George's forum and not mine - I'll end my responses here.

          Best regards,

          Tony

          a month later
          • [deleted]

          The problem with this approach is that dreams fundamentally, ultimately, naturally, and theoretically unify gravity, inertia, and electromagnetism consistent with our experience as it is seen, felt, and touched.

          • [deleted]

          I demand and expect honesty and truth from FQXi.org in physics.

          10 days later
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          I am fascinated by causality and have long wondered why modern science gives it such little attention. Ellis's ideas may or may not prove compelling, but I love the fact that someone is finally talking about it.

          a month later
          • [deleted]

          Our being conscious/alive in conjunction with the FUNDAMENTAL (and ultimate) experience of our growth and becoming other than we are would naturally, theoretically, generally, and fundamentally unify physics and physical experience (seen, felt, AND touched). Dreams do this.