Sara - great essay! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's an excellent overview of the latest in the field. Of course, I may be a little biased in that I'm always happy to see causal emergence make an appearance!

You can check out my own essay on causal emergence and how it relates to agents: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2873

I did have a question though. At the end of your essay you give a new analysis, which is important because you say "The point of this essay is to suggest that life is like the right of Fig. 5 rather than the left (and is not merely a coarse-grained macrostate of the left)."

The new analysis concerns ECA rule 150. You say that "Shown on the right, is the state transition diagram where a property like 'top-down' causation is explicitly introduced, and the dynamics are run again with Rule 150. Here macro causal interactions are are introduced by blackboxing the width w = 6 CA into two subsystems."

I'm wondering if you could go into further detail about exactly what it means that "a property like 'top-down' causation is explicitly introduced?"

How exactly did you implement these macro causal interactions? Did you add some extra update rules to represent some outside unknown kind of top-down causation? I ask because, if you did merely black box, there should be less states (as some are black boxed) but there are an identical number of states in each picture of the state-transitions. Black boxing would be leaving some states out of your model of the system, so there should be less on the right image.

Additionally, on the left, there are some states that lead only to themselves. But then on the right this isn't true anymore. I'm amazed black boxing could somehow, by itself, change that, as by definition, black boxing is just leaving states out of the model is just choosing to represent a subset of the state-space.

If you did add in some kind of extra macro-only update rules to represent top-down causation, I'm wondering exactly what that shows? We can obviously take any system, add in some outside source of causation or add in new rules, and that system may operate very differently. But the system operating differently will have some microscale description that has those rules in it... so I'm not sure what is being gained. I was just looking for more detail on that analysis.

Anyways, I greatly enjoyed the essay and how nimbly you present the field - thanks so much for the read!

Erik P Hoel

    Dear, Сара Имари Уокер.

    I inform all the participants that use the electronic translator, therefore, my essay is written badly. I participate in the contest to familiarize English-speaking scientists with New Cartesian Physic, the basis of which the principle of identity of space and matter. Combining space and matter into a single essence, the New Cartesian Physic is able to integrate modern physics into a single theory. Let FQXi will be the starting point of this Association.

    Don't let the New Cartesian Physic disappear! Do not ask for himself, but for Descartes.

    New Cartesian Physic has great potential in understanding the world. To show potential in this essay I risked give "The way of The materialist explanation of the paranormal and the supernatural" - Is the name of my essay.

    Visit my essay and you will find something in it about New Cartesian Physic. After you give a post in my topic, I shall do the same.

    Sincerely,

    Dizhechko Boris

    Professor Walker,

    Congratulations on a very interesting and well-written essay that discusses aspects of the theme of the contest.

    It seems you believe only living systems exhibit goal-directed behavior and I share that belief with you. From that, I had hoped you would develop an argument for how the capacity for living systems to exhibit the behavior is born out of the conglomeration of mindless mathematical laws. However, you chose to "recast" the theme question, 'how mindless mathematical laws can give rise to goal-directed behavior,' into 'how it is that macroscopic systems can appear to cause transformations under the constraints of deterministic laws.' These are two fundamentally different issues and, in my opinion, you "transformed" the rules by altering the question (which is likely acceptable).

    Rather than proposing how physical systems evolved into ones that exhibit the features of life, including goal-directed behavior, you discuss how living entities (which we know are the result of the mindless laws) configured themselves to exploit their capacity to seek goals. You mention that 'a whole can be more than the sum of its parts,' and that 'a system is integrated when, cut into parts, it loses cause-effect power,' but, as far as I can see, you do not discuss what causes the synergy. What is it about the configuration of the living system that causes it make the jump from inert matter to a living entity? You describe how the integration works, but not why it works. What is it about a living entity that sparks the integration? (You may have done this and I just missed it. Some of your essay is beyond my current knowledge of the subjects you discuss.)

    This is not to suggest that I believe you have not done good, useful work - I think you have. Compared to the bulk of the essays submitted (including mine), you deserve a relatively high score and I am glad that you currently have one. It is just that, given your apparent knowledge of the subject; your insights into what makes systems transition from deterministic entities, their fates driven by their environments, into living entities whose fates are determined by their wills, are likely invaluable.

    Bill Stubbs

    Dear Sara

    What an excellent essay. One of the few to approach it from biology, or highlight the importance of what can be learnt from it to answer the question. I think Ellis and mine and a couple more the only others, though mine is epistemologically focused. Will happily rate this essay in top percentage, perhaps u can read and rate mine but understand your busy. I wonder this simultaneous electric in and through neurons, how is it consciousness? Still the illusive internal external hard problem remains - but your solving the wiring issue!

    Best

    Jack Hamiltion James

    Philosopher.io

    Dear Sara Walker

    I read your essay with great interest. One of the two essays that so far have interested me more. I think that there is a great similarity between your line of reasoning in the biological side and mine in the physical side. I would say that you wonder on bit-to-bio while I wonder on abio-to-bit.

    In my essay I dare to enter also in the biological field, introducing something that may help to understand why life evolved as it did. Life seems to be prone to evolve in all possible directions; yet, it evolved towards human society as if this was a goal. You show that life has the power to evolve - you present the basic process of intelligence of life, and we can say that life has "intelligence" (according to my non-anthropomorphic definition of intelligence)- but "intelligence" either needs a goal or an external pressure to determine the way to follow. Intelligence is always the result of two processes, to which I call Hypothesis generation and Selection. And this happens at all levels within life, as you show, which is very important. I present a new Selection factor at the upper level that may have conditioned Selection processes all the way down to the bit, therefore may be important for your analysis. Once we understand the "generation of hypotheses", it is in the understanding of the Selection processes that we may find whether there is a goal or not. I think that our essays gave complementary contributions to this issue, are tow pieces of this magnum puzzle.

    All the best,

    Alfredo Gouveia Oliveira

    Nice essay Sara Walker,

    Wonderful opening sentences!..... "the extreme such as what happens under gravitational collapse or how the nucleus is bound together. However, so far our best theories of physics have not yet been able to explain why physical systems exist that can and do create theories to describe the world (Krakauer, 2014). Arguably this is the most interesting feature of having laws at all"

    Here this Dynamic Universe Model answers many physics questions starting from Micro level, Solar system level, Galaxy level and to the Universe level............

    ..................... Hence at this point, I want you to ask you to please have a look at my essay ALSO, where ...............reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe is described. Dynamic Universe Model is another mathematical model for Universe. Its mathematics show that the movement of masses will be having a purpose or goal, Different Galaxies will be born and die (quench) etc...just have a look at the essay... "Distances, Locations, Ages and Reproduction of Galaxies in our Dynamic Universe" where UGF (Universal Gravitational force) acting on each and every mass, will create a direction and purpose of movement.....

    I think intension is inherited from Universe itself to all Biological systems

    For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.

    Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example 'Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary' (1994) , 'Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe', About "SITA" simulations, 'Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required', "New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations", "Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background", "Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.", in 2015 'Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, 'Explaining Pioneer anomaly', 'Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets', 'Observation of super luminal neutrinos', 'Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up', "Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto" etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.

    With axioms like... No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.

    Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain

    Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading...

    http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/

    Best wishes to your essay.

    For your blessings please................

    =snp. gupta

    Dear Sara,

    Thank you for such a finely crafted and interesting essay, with thought-provoking ideas exploring the role of information in scientific theories. As a particle physicist, one thing I definitely agree with you is the underappreciation that emergence and reductionism are not at odds with each other.

    While researching for our essay, my coauthor and I were influenced by your earlier work from the wider literature, in particular 'The algorithmic origins of life' regarding the transitional roles of information giving rise to biology and other goal-directed structures. I'd just like to personally extend our compliments to you here as it is always a pleasure reading your insightful arguments.

    Best,

    Jesse

    Dear Sara Walker.

    I found your essay to be quite superb, and I boosted your rating here. It is one of the dozen or so that I have downloaded as a keeper. The branching pattern for emergence is an aspect of something called MERA. This in the biological setting is seen with the branching pattern, such as with figure 2. These set up competing "tracks" of causal development, and a large domain of complexity as seen with the Bell number.

    If you look at my essay I discuss causal domains and the open world. I have a review of the MERA tensor network quantum field method in anti de Sitter spacetime. This leads to causal domains as a fundamental aspect of the universe. I think there is a sort of duality between bottom up and top down perspective on the emergence of complexity in the universe.

    Cheers LC

    Dear Professor Sara Imari Walker [,

    Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

    I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

    Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

    The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

    A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

    Joe Fisher, Realist

    Dear Sara,

    this is a nice contribution. I particularly like how you describe goal-directedness in terms of a primary attractor. I strongly support that "there is no a priori reason to assume that we should not treat all levels equally" and that "emergence and reductionism are not at odds" -- points I also make in my essay. Reductionism and emergence are two sides of the same coin.

    Cheers, Stefan

    PS (one minor remark): The formula you give for the Bell numbers,[math]\sum_{k=0}^n \left( \begin{matrix} n \\ k \end{matrix} \right) ,[/math] yields just [math]2^n .[/math] The Bell numbers satisfy the recursion relation [math]B_{n+1}=\sum_{k=0}^n \left( \begin{matrix} n \\ k \end{matrix} \right) B_k .[/math] Of course, this doesn't affect any of your arguments.

    5 days later

    Hi Don,

    I agree with your points 1 and 2. I tried to stick with explicit examples that illustrate important concepts but recognize they are limited and that none of them captures everything about what is really going on (I like your point that we may not have the right mathematical tools, I very much agree and feel dissatisfied with statical approaches but find them useful in lieu of something better in the interim).

    I am not sure on your last example, could you explain a bit more what you mean? Since 'levels' are different descriptions of the same thing I am not sure it requires embedding them in a higher dimensional space to understand their structure. I may agree with you but I've not thought about it this way so it would be good to see if we are indeed thinking along similar lines.

    Thanks for the thoughtful comments on my essay!

    All the best,

    Sara

    This is an interesting thought. I go back and forth about whether I think everything is deterministic or if randomness is essential. Since the descriptions in the biological model I discussed are all at the macro level, the micro-dynamics do not need to be deterministic, so I am not sure these things are antagonistic. But why do you think deterministic systems would only produce "strange" attractors?

    All the best,

    Sara

    Hi Conrad,

    Thanks for the comments - and for pointing me to a few additional essays to read here! I obviously agree it is obvious that higher-level entities can have causal power. The point is that we still need to understand how this works, why it happens, and why some physical systems (i.e. living entities including us) seem to have more "causal power" than others. As an example, it was obvious that the the planets moved across our night sky to the ancients but it took understanding gravity to allow us to do things with that knowledge. Likewise, if we understand how macro-causation works we should be able to do interesting things with that knowledge (so clearly here as in my essay my interest is not in the predictive power of our theories but in what they allow us to do). Also, there remains the fact that not everyone agrees that higher level systems can have causal efficacy, and if it exists it should be something we can quantify (and in turn hopefully use to quantify 'life').

    The most interesting part is why some systems have more "causal power" than others and what "problem" that solves. My feeling is that those systems that have higher levels causes are dynamically richer - they make things possible that wouldn't happen otherwise. I am not specifically interested in whether this counts as a form of "causality" (you can call it what you will, I do happen to think it is causality but that is an interesting discussion in its own right). I am more interested in whether this idea that higher level causes allow things that would be not be possible otherwise underlies the physics of living systems, such that life is a process that increases the number of transformations that could be caused to occur (leading to an "arrow" of complexity for living and technological processes). So the combination of the (causal) hierarchy and how it defines/redefines dynamical possibilities is my primary interest and motivates most of my approach to these problems these days.

    Hope this clarifies and thanks again for the comments!

    All the best,

    Sara

    Hi Simon,

    Thanks! This is great fun - i really like your Grand Central Station example. I think there are some things I can do with your suggestions ... will be interesting to play around with.

    All the best,

    Sara

    Hi Erik,

    Thanks for the enthusiasm! I've really enjoyed your work on causal emergence.

    I am still playing around with these examples and finding the best way to describe and motivate them, so your questions are really great. My main motivation is that I am interested in how you can get different dynamics from the same initial state and fixed dynamical law by partitioning systems in different ways. This is what I think is more "life-like".

    I do introduce a new "macro rule" to do this. To do this I partitioned the system in two subsystems A and B. Each updates according to rule 150. The "macro rule" is the interaction. I will focus on what happens for A (but the interaction in the essay is symmetric). B is a boundary for A. In usual CA we would assign one cell in B to be the input to A. I instead assumed that the states of B are partitioned into two disjoint sets, each 'causes' a different transformation in A. If you want a fully micro narrative, this amounts to a CA with a state-dependent topology. State-dependent topology is more general than what I did, but I wanted to explicitly look at cases where you could describe A as getting 'information' only about a coarse-grained state of B. The interaction with A is not really coarse-graining B because it is not an average property of B that matters but a set of states, so I call it 'black boxing' (probably too loose a use of the term and hence the confusion). The information is lost for A (it has no capacity to distinguish the microstate of B). B has the same kind of interaction with A. So the 'black boxes' in this case are not an external description of the system but define the interactions between the two systems by defining what subspace is relevant for their interaction. I then look at the state transitions that are possible for both subsystems jointly and that is what is in the right panel. The full state space is not reduced in how we can externally describe it.

    For your "what is gained" question (its a good one, and I am still grappling with this myself!) the motivation is that we could of course just look for some outside source of causation. Typically if we did that it would be a state, rather than a set of states (macrostate). If it is a state then the entire system (system outside causes) should follow a single trajectory defined by its initial state (at least for the CA example, we can debate if this is true of reality). To describe life, I'd like solutions where there are many paths that can be traversed defined by the interactions, coupling the systems in this way gives that kind of flexibility. To be more fair, I should perhaps compare my 3-bit subsystems to the dynamics that a 3 bits of an ECA could do, embedded within a 6-bit CA. Based on other experiments I've run, I am pretty sure it would still be the case that the construction in the paper would allow more dynamical possibilities then assuming a 3-bit CA is open to an environment, but I will do that.

    You could always do a cheat where you have open boundaries with some sort of fixed or time-dependent input. But I am interested in cases where the boundary obeys the same laws at the micro level as the system you are studying. In that case you are not free to arbitrarily set the outside source of causation to anything you want to drive the dynamics you want to see. If only the microstate matters than you are really limited in the dynamics the coupled system can achieve. By allowing interactions through macrostates much more interesting stuff can happen. As a side note, if you wanted to choose any sort of fixed or time-dependent boundary condition then for that to obey the same 'laws' at the micro level as the system of interest you are already assuming 'macrocausation' by top-down causation. Basically I think we do this all the time by modeling open systems (or any system where the rules are not the same everywhere), but I am trying to make explicit cases where that openness must be made compatible with uniform deterministic dynamical laws that are the same everywhere at the microlevel. And, to do this with still allowing the possibility to explore many paths through state space (which is what I am assuming life does).

    This is a bit of a difficult format to explain these things (much easier with a whiteboard) so I hope this helps to clarify.

    All the best,

    Sara

    Hi Sara,

    I read your beautiful submission and I am impressed, except for it's one fatal flaw. We don't have a good definition of life yet. Until that definition exists the things that fall under the definition of life but aren't get to have "aims and intentions" as you say only life has. A burning match falls under some definitions of life. Are you saying a burning match has "aims and intentions"? Your whole paragraph on the Yeast cell cycle could replace the word Yeast with burning match and still have the same outcome although a different figure 1.

    You have done something that I have never seen before in an FQXi contest. You cited as a reference another contestant in this contest. The contestant is Erik P. Hoel that you cite in your references. You didn't cite his submission to this contest.

    Anyway, good luck in the contest.

    Jim Akerlund

    5 days later

    Sara -

    Well done. Your score should be much higher.

    If I had read your essay before writing mine, I would certainly have cited it! :)

    Best of luck - George Gantz (The How and The Why of Intention)

    Dear Sara Walker

    You write:

    »If deterministic physical laws describe all of reality, there is no "room at the bottom" for macro systems (such as living entities) to do causal work.«

    This is one of the best sentences in this contest.

    You write also

    »an explicit measure of how a whole can be "more than the sum of its parts". Briefly, a system is integrated if when cut in parts it looses cause-effect power«

    I claim that consciousness is everywhere, although in the most elementary form, this is panpsychism. I claim also that the smallest units of consciousness arise at every wavefunction collapse.

    We can also add that entangelment is the simplest example where connection between two particles gives information, which do not exist in particles alone.

    Therefore I suspect that top-down causation and quantum consciousness are two aspects of the same phenomenon.

    As a question, how much information is hidden in one monocrystall? How this information is larger than in atoms alone?

    More in my essay and in other my links.

    Best regards, Janko Kokošar

    Sara Walker,

    This is a fantastic essay on the emergence of purpose. It is one of the best I have read; right up there with John Ellis.

    Here comes the amateur lumbering into the conversation, way over his head. All of the following statements are guesses. They should be prefaced with: "Could it be that..." I haven't even begun to parse it all, if I ever will. I see a lot of additional homework ahead. A deeper understanding of information theory is definitely in order. I see a lot of good leads in your list of references. Can you recommend a good reference book on Boolean networks?

    First off, I think we both can take for granted, the need for top-down causality in any sensible description of goal oriented behavior. I really like your statement: 'it is not a goal if it is not internally programed.' This line of thinking nicely decouples the word goal from my notion of teleological bias, which require sentience and places it earlier in the evolution of the causal chain.

    I find it useful to slightly redefine several of the most common words used in these discussions. These are phenomenal definitions: a sentient being is nothing more than an individuated organism, which is connected to and reacts to the variations in its environment by way of receptor and proprioceptor nerve endings. By this definition a worm can be sentient. Intelligence is the quantitative and qualitative capacity to process and organize information. By this definition, the computer Watson is highly intelligent. Consciousness is the subjective phenomenal experience of the qualia of sentience as a first-person observation of the present moment. An agenda somehow comes out of this and presents itself directly to the subject. I generally try to avoid the use of the word intentional as it can be confused with the less descriptive philosophical term of art denoting the content or object of consciousness. This definition is unfortunate. So much of our language developed around the requirement of encoding the aspects of dealing with other living things in our environment. Consequently it has acquired all of the teleological trappings of directed, volitional goal oriented behavior which come to be applied to the behavior of inanimate objects in an attempt to explain them. Nature abhors a vacuum.

    From my remarks to John Ellis on his essay:

    Purpose is something we see within ourselves and see in others. As embodied minds, we take its existence for granted as part of the requirement for the evolution of life. And like consciousness, it seems to resist a reductionistic explanation. Existence, sentience, consciousness and the nature and mechanism behind the collapse of the wavefunction remain elusive and mysterious.

    It would occur to us in retrospect that the veracity, completeness and therefore the predictive power of this internalized observation of reality would serve an organism well. But this would beg the question: how, on the evolutionary trail, did an organism's acquisition of an agenda to extract meaningful and relevant information for survival arise? Somehow, it must be connected to existential threat. But how does the organism come to sense that existential threat? My simplistic answer is that an organism's nerve endings, no matter how primitive, provide the initial feedback. All sentient beings have skin in the game. But there still remains the problem of how that feedback might be converted into consciousness and the sensation of jeopardy. {Insert hand waving here} Once the sense of jeopardy has been detected, the obvious back reaction would be a teleological bias to fulfill the dual agendas: stay in the energy flux and avoid destruction. This would go for the tubeworms living near a steam vent or, as more neural circuitry is thrown at the problem in service of this agenda, an investment banker competing for her share of the billions in bonuses available to maintain herself far from equilibrium.

    Now back to your teleologically more neutral idea of 'goal' which can occur within any intelligent information processing system sans sentience. This brings me closer to spanning the explanatory gap between the goal seeking capabilities of a single biological structure and the entire organism. If it can be had just in the structure, it might provide the bridge needed to arrive at its final destination within the organism.

    There is a wonderful description of microtubules in The Quantum Brain by Jeffery Satinover where alternating rows of alpha and beta dimers join at a seam which is offset by three rows. This configuration would lend itself to the progressive evolution of cellular automatons winding their way down and continuing their deterministic evolution at the seam just as programmed cellular automatons go off the screen on one side only to appear again on the other side. And no, I am not advocating for OOR. The decoherence time associated with ambient temperatures would seem to rule that possibility out. But at the same time, I would not totally rule it out.

    Best regards,

    Jim Stanfield