Core Concepts
Abduction Belief Best Explanation Cause Certainty Chance Coherence Correspondence Decoherence Divided Line Downward Causation Emergence Emergent Dualism ERR Identity Theory Infinite Regress Information Intension/Extension Intersubjectivism Justification Materialism Meaning Mental Causation Multiple Realizability Naturalism Necessity Possible Worlds Postmodernism Probability Realism Reductionism Schrödinger's Cat Supervenience Truth Universals Philosophers Mortimer Adler Rogers Albritton Alexander of Aphrodisias Samuel Alexander William Alston Anaximander G.E.M.Anscombe Anselm Louise Antony Thomas Aquinas Aristotle David Armstrong Harald Atmanspacher Robert Audi Augustine J.L.Austin A.J.Ayer Alexander Bain Mark Balaguer Jeffrey Barrett William Barrett William Belsham Henri Bergson George Berkeley Isaiah Berlin Richard J. Bernstein Bernard Berofsky Robert Bishop Max Black Susanne Bobzien Emil du Bois-Reymond Hilary Bok Laurence BonJour George Boole Émile Boutroux Daniel Boyd F.H.Bradley C.D.Broad Michael Burke Jeremy Butterfield Lawrence Cahoone C.A.Campbell Joseph Keim Campbell Rudolf Carnap Carneades Nancy Cartwright Gregg Caruso Ernst Cassirer David Chalmers Roderick Chisholm Chrysippus Cicero Tom Clark Randolph Clarke Samuel Clarke Anthony Collins Antonella Corradini Diodorus Cronus Jonathan Dancy Donald Davidson Mario De Caro Democritus Daniel Dennett Jacques Derrida René Descartes Richard Double Fred Dretske John Earman Laura Waddell Ekstrom Epictetus Epicurus Austin Farrer Herbert Feigl Arthur Fine John Martin Fischer Frederic Fitch Owen Flanagan Luciano Floridi Philippa Foot Alfred Fouilleé Harry Frankfurt Richard L. Franklin Bas van Fraassen Michael Frede Gottlob Frege Peter Geach Edmund Gettier Carl Ginet Alvin Goldman Gorgias Nicholas St. John Green H.Paul Grice Ian Hacking Ishtiyaque Haji Stuart Hampshire W.F.R.Hardie Sam Harris William Hasker R.M.Hare Georg W.F. Hegel Martin Heidegger Heraclitus R.E.Hobart Thomas Hobbes David Hodgson Shadsworth Hodgson Baron d'Holbach Ted Honderich Pamela Huby David Hume Ferenc Huoranszki Frank Jackson William James Lord Kames Robert Kane Immanuel Kant Tomis Kapitan Walter Kaufmann Jaegwon Kim William King Hilary Kornblith Christine Korsgaard Saul Kripke Thomas Kuhn Andrea Lavazza James Ladyman Christoph Lehner Keith Lehrer Gottfried Leibniz Jules Lequyer Leucippus Michael Levin Joseph Levine George Henry Lewes C.I.Lewis David Lewis Peter Lipton C. Lloyd Morgan John Locke Michael Lockwood Arthur O. Lovejoy E. Jonathan Lowe John R. Lucas Lucretius Alasdair MacIntyre Ruth Barcan Marcus Tim Maudlin James Martineau Nicholas Maxwell Storrs McCall Hugh McCann Colin McGinn Michael McKenna Brian McLaughlin John McTaggart Paul E. Meehl Uwe Meixner Alfred Mele Trenton Merricks John Stuart Mill Dickinson Miller G.E.Moore Ernest Nagel Thomas Nagel Otto Neurath Friedrich Nietzsche John Norton P.H.Nowell-Smith Robert Nozick William of Ockham Timothy O'Connor Parmenides David F. 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Jay Wallace W.G.Ward Ted Warfield Roy Weatherford C.F. von Weizsäcker William Whewell Alfred North Whitehead David Widerker David Wiggins Bernard Williams Timothy Williamson Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Wolf Scientists David Albert Michael Arbib Walter Baade Bernard Baars Jeffrey Bada Leslie Ballentine Marcello Barbieri Gregory Bateson Horace Barlow John S. Bell Mara Beller Charles Bennett Ludwig von Bertalanffy Susan Blackmore Margaret Boden David Bohm Niels Bohr Ludwig Boltzmann Emile Borel Max Born Satyendra Nath Bose Walther Bothe Jean Bricmont Hans Briegel Leon Brillouin Stephen Brush Henry Thomas Buckle S. H. Burbury Melvin Calvin Donald Campbell Sadi Carnot Anthony Cashmore Eric Chaisson Gregory Chaitin Jean-Pierre Changeux Rudolf Clausius Arthur Holly Compton John Conway Simon Conway-Morris Jerry Coyne John Cramer Francis Crick E. P. 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Skinner Lee Smolin Ray Solomonoff Roger Sperry John Stachel Henry Stapp Tom Stonier Antoine Suarez Leo Szilard Max Tegmark Teilhard de Chardin Libb Thims William Thomson (Kelvin) Richard Tolman Giulio Tononi Peter Tse Alan Turing C. S. Unnikrishnan Nico van Kampen Francisco Varela Vlatko Vedral Vladimir Vernadsky Mikhail Volkenstein Heinz von Foerster Richard von Mises John von Neumann Jakob von Uexküll C. H. Waddington James D. Watson John B. Watson Daniel Wegner Steven Weinberg Paul A. Weiss Herman Weyl John Wheeler Jeffrey Wicken Wilhelm Wien Norbert Wiener Eugene Wigner E. O. Wilson Günther Witzany Stephen Wolfram H. Dieter Zeh Semir Zeki Ernst Zermelo Wojciech Zurek Konrad Zuse Fritz Zwicky Presentations Biosemiotics Free Will Mental Causation James Symposium |
Downward Causation
Belief in causality is deeply held by many philosophers and scientists. Many say it is the basis for all thought and knowledge of the external world. The idea that every event has a cause leads to the view of causal closure or causal determinism. The simplest form of physical determinism is the Laplacian view that given the positions and velocities of all the fundamental particles in the world, together with the laws of nature, that there is only one possible future.
Reductionism is the view that material particles and the physical forces between them, which are supposed to be mathematically analytical, can explain all that happens in the world. Chemistry is thought to be reducible to physics, biology reducible to chemistry, psychology (via neuroscience) reducible to biology, and mind/brain (or cognitive science) reducible to psychology. All these causal relations are called "bottom-up."
The finest details of brain events are thought by some to be a consequence of motions of the material particles that comprise the brain. Reductionism implies that mind is an epiphenomenon, or worse, just an illusion. The reductionist idea that everything is the consequence of "bottom up" physical causes is often called eliminative materialism.
By contrast, downward causation is a kind of holism that denies reductionism. "Wholes" can enforce constraints on their "parts" to make them move in ways that may be unpredictable, even given the complete information about the parts (ultimately the atoms and molecules) along with the complete information about the state of the universe outside those parts.
Downward causation is closely related to the concepts of emergence, self-organization, and supervenience. It has become very popular in the study of complex physical systems which exhibit a kind of self-organization and emergence of visible structures when the systems are far from equilibrium conditions.
Most modern discussions of emergence and self-organization in hierarchical systems start with the early 1950's work of Ilya Prigogine on dissipative structures, physical and chemical systems that are far from equilibrium, through which there is a steady flow of matter and energy.
Despite the normal tendency to chaos (the second law of thermodynamics and increasing entropy), these dissipative systems develop relatively stable visible structures, such as Bénard convection cells and Turing autocatalytic reactions that show space-dependent, steady-state processes stable against perturbations. These visible structures reduce the entropy locally. Prigogine's discovery of such "order out of chaos" in physical systems is widely cited as evidence of emergent properties in complex adaptive systems. It lies at the heart of modern complexity theory and chaos theory.
The idea that the emergent structures exert downward causal control on their molecular components was perhaps first articulated by Roger Sperry in 1965. Sperry cites a wheel rolling downhill as an example of downward causal control. The atoms and molecules are caught up and overpowered by the higher properties of the whole. He says that he "worked the new mind-brain ideas into a discussion of holist-reductionist issues, emergent downward control. and ‘nothing but’ fallacies in human value systems, in a broad refutation of the then prevalent ’mechanistic, materialistic, behavioristic, fatalistic, reductionistic view of the 'nature of mind and psyche’."
But Sperry's downward control over atoms is a gross and "dumb" sort of control. What British emergentists were looking for, according to Brian McLaughlin, is a fine and "intelligent" control over individual atoms and molecules of the kind seen in biological systems, which Erwin Schrödinger called "order out of order."
In 1974 Donald Campbell coined the phrase "downward causation" and Campbell is widely cited in the current literature as the main source of the idea.
Some biologists (e.g., Ernst Mayr) have argued that biology is not reducible to physics and chemistry, although it is completely consistent with the laws of physics. Even the apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics has been explained because living beings are open systems exchanging matter, energy, and especially information with their environment. In particular, biological systems have a history that physical systems do not, they store knowledge that allows them to be cognitive systems, and they process information at a very fine (atomic/molecular) level.
Information is neither matter nor energy, but it needs matter for its embodiment and energy for its communication.
A living being is a form through which passes a flow of matter and energy (with low or "negative" entropy, the physical equivalent of information). Genetic information is used to build the information-rich matter into an overall information structure that contains a very large number of hierarchically organized information structures. Emergent higher levels exert downward causation on the contents of the lower levels.
The problem of mental causation is a specific case of downward causal control that is central to the philosophy of mind.
The idea that minds have powers "over and above" the known physical, chemical, and biological laws is sometimes called "mentalism." It is related to the idea of "vitalism," that biology might involve new laws that cannot be reduced to "nothing but" the laws of physics.
But when biologists look closely at the "vital" processes going on in our cells, they see nothing but information processing and "self-assembly" going on at a rate that makes our best computers and manufacturing robots pale by comparison.
Examples of Downward Causation
For Teachers
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"We must admit that the mind of each one of our greatest geniuses — Aristotle, Kant or Leonardo, Goethe or Beethoven, Dante or Shakespeare — even at the moment of its highest flights of thought or in the most profound inner workings of the soul, was subject to the causal fiat and was a instrument in the hands of an almighty law which governs the world." Max Planck, Where Is Science Going, p.156.
[In Existentialism, the will condemns all the unchosen alternatives to nothingness as it grants being to the one chosen.]
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