Ellis, George 2012 Recognising Top-Down Causation Downward
<p>Apr 26, 2018 09:17 PM unbelievably good! Ellis a cosmologist at U Capetown age 78.
This is a stunner. (won 2nd prize in the Foundational Questions competition.)</p>
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One of the basic assumptions implicit in the way physics is usually done is that all causation flows in a bottom up fashion, from micro to macro scales. However this is<b> wrong in many cases in biology,</b> and in particular in the way the brain functions. Here I make the case that it is also<b> wrong in the case of digital computers - the paradigm of mechanistic algorithmic causation </b>- and in many cases in physics, ranging from the origin of the arrow of time to the process of state vector preparation. I consider some examples from classical physics, as well as the case of digital computers, and then explain why this is possible without contradicting the causal powers of the underlying microphysics. Understanding the emergence of genuine complexity out of the underlying physics depends on recognising this kind of causation.</p>
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page 1: Dirac: chemistry is just an application of quantum physics.</p>
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some writers prefer "contextual effects" or "whole-part constraints"</p>
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See... Four crucial points emerge.</p>
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A: Causal Efficacy of Non Physical entities:</p>
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<b>C: The program logic dictates the course of things</b>!!!</p>
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digital computers embody and demonstrate the causal efficacy of non-physical entities.
The physics allows this, it does not control what takes place.</p>
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Hence although they are the ultimate in algorithmic causation as characterized so precisely by Turing [22], digital computers embody and demonstrate the causal efficacy of non-physical entities. The physics allows this, it does not control what takes place.<b> Computers exemplify the emergence of new kinds of causation out of the underlying physics, not implied by physics but rather by the logic of higher level possibilities.</b> This leads to a different phenomenology at each of the levels of Table 2, described by effective laws for that level, and an appropriate language. A combination of <b>bottom up causation and contextual affects (top-down influences)</b> enables their complex functioning....</p>
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page 7: the higher levels are causally REAL b/c they have actual causal powers over the lower levels.</p>
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top-down effects are the key to rise of genuine complexity... such as computers and humans.</p>
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