Downward Causation

The interaction problem – the problem of how mind and body interact – is typically taken to be the most severe problem for mind-body dualism. There are different types of interaction problems: the heterogeneity problem, the problem of the non-spatiality of the mind, the objection from conservation laws and the pairing problem. I review the responses to all of them and find that none of these so-called problems stand scrutiny. Recently, Derek Shiller has presented an intensified version of the pairing (...) problem, the Neural Discernment Problem (NDP). The NDP is the problem how non-physical minds are paired with specific sets of neurons in the brain. I examine the epistemological reading he gives of the problem, which has interactive dualism come out as implausible. Shiller discusses four different responses to the NDP: pairing with spatial relations, pairing with union relations, pairing with intrinsic properties and brute mind- brain causation. Shiller argues that the last three suffer from a lack of parsimony. However, in the grand scheme of the debate around dualism, those parsimony-related worries seem somewhat out of proportion. Moreover, I argue that some of Shiller’s worries can be mended by J.P. Moreland’s recent dualistic account of the soul-body union. The conclusion is that there really is no interaction problem. (shrink)

This paper investigates the mechanism of downward causation in emergent systems, proposing the concept of an effective potential as its mathematical formalization from the perspective of lower-level dynamics. In connection with nonlinear dynamical equations, we demonstrate that feedback mechanisms in complex systems are often erroneously reduced to phenomenological models. This reveals a methodological pitfall in physical research: phenomenological models grounded in reductionism may fail to uniquely map onto the intrinsic dynamics of the system. Consequently, we advocate establishing a new paradigm (...) that transcends reductionism and seeks a more fundamental understanding of complex systems. Using cosmological-scale dark matter phenomena as an example, we highlight the interdisciplinary significance of this approach. (shrink)

This study is based on the theory of emergence and introduces a hierarchical model of consciousness to analyze how consciousness emerges, propagates, and evolves at the human level. By investigating interaction mechanisms between hierarchical levels, it interprets complex phenomena such as individual desires, free will, and social evolution. Additionally, by exploring the possibility of consciousness transcending biological constraints, it analyzes potential future forms of consciousness. Finally, through a reflexive approach, this paper highlights that it is not only a theoretical description (...) of consciousness but also a self-proof of the theory itself. This research aims to provide a systematic theoretical framework for the nature of consciousness, individual behavior, and mechanisms of social evolution, while opening new directions for systems science and sociology. (shrink)

This study is based on the theory of emergence and introduces a hierarchical model of consciousness to analyze how consciousness emerges, propagates, and evolves within human level. By examining the interaction mechanisms between different hierarchical levels, it interprets complex phenomena such as individual desires, free will, and social evolution. Additionally, by exploring the possibility of consciousness transcending biological constraints, it analyzes potential future forms of consciousness. Finally, through a reflexive approach, this paper highlights that it is not only a theoretical (...) description of consciousness but also a self-proof of the theory itself. This research aims to provide a systematic theoretical framework for the nature of consciousness, individual behavior, and mechanisms of social evolution, while opening new directions for systems science and sociology. (shrink)

Contemporary complexity theory has been instrumental in providing novel rigorous definitions for some classic philosophical concepts, including emergence. In an attempt to provide an account of emergence that is consistent with complexity and dynamical systems theory, several authors have turned to the notion of constraints on state transitions. Drawing on complexity theory directly, this paper builds on those accounts, further developing the constraint-based interpretation of emergence and arguing that such accounts recover many of the features of more traditional accounts. We (...) show that the constraint-based account of emergence also leads naturally into a meaningful definition of self-organization, another concept that has received increasing attention recently. Along the way, we distinguish between order and organization, two concepts which are frequently conflated. Finally, we consider possibilities for future research in the philosophy of complex systems, as well as applications of the distinctions made in this paper. (shrink)

The enduring problem of free will has defied resolution across centuries. There is reason to believe that novel factors must be integrated into the analysis to make progress. Within the current physicalist framework, these factors encompass emergence and information theory, in the context of constraints imposed by physical limits on the representation of information. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as 'being able to act differently' is rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for formal analysis. It is (...) argued that the mind is an ontologically open system; a causal high-level system, the dynamics of which cannot be reduced to the states of its associated low-level neural systems, not even if it is rendered physically closed. A positive answer to the question of free will for conscious agents is subsequently outlined. (shrink)

The problem of free will has persistently resisted a solution throughout centuries. There is reason to believe that new elements need to be introduced into the analysis in order to make progress. In the present physicalist approach, these elements are emergence and information theory in relation to universal limits set by quantum physics. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as "being able to act differently" is, in the spirit of Carnap, rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for (...) formal analysis. It is argued that the mind is an ontologically open system; a causal high-level system, the future of which cannot be reduced to the states of its associated low-level neural systems, not even if it is rendered physically closed. A positive answer to the question of free will is subsequently outlined. (shrink)

A wide range of persistent philosophical disputes may originate from a common inferential transition. Structures introduced to represent empirical systems gradually begin to function as if they directly specified the ontology of those systems. What begins as representation becomes ontology. This paper reconstructs that transition and formalizes it as the ontologization of the descriptive layer. The central claim is that descriptive success alone does not license ontological identification. A successful framework may preserve relevant relational structure while remaining ontologically distinct from (...) the system it represents. The analysis develops this claim through the Descriptive Non-Identity Lemma, according to which structural correspondence underdetermines ontological identity. Building on this result, the paper introduces two methodological diagnostics: the Ontologization Test, which identifies transitions from representation to unsupported ontological commitment, and the Operational Emergence Test, which distinguishes ontological inflation from higher-order structures that become operationally significant by stabilizing constraints within system dynamics. The argument is developed through discussions of scientific representation, model theory, underdetermination, mathematical platonism, gauge theory, and emergence. The resulting framework separates representational success, operational organization, and ontological commitment without collapsing into either eliminative reductionism or unrestricted ontological realism. (shrink)

Causality is a property of the metric in which events are described, defined only where ordering, adjacency, and transitivity hold. Where any of these fail, causality becomes undefined — and the dichotomy "caused or random" collapses. Three positions on a spectrum emerge: pure causality (causes as law), operational acausality (causes as manipulable object), and pure acausality (pre-metric potentiality). The recursion of reflection proves that no level of description is absolute, exposing universal determinism as itself a postulate outside the causal grid. (...) Free will is the halting of this recursion: a projection of anti-metric content into a causal node, rendering it incompatible with the surrounding metric and establishing the subject as self-grounded. Since a closed system cannot generate the means of its own overcoming, the first postulate requires encounter with foreign content. A triad results — pre-metric potentiality (Tiamat), metric monopoly (Demiurge), anti-metric intrusion (Black Flame) — recasting the Left Hand Path as counter-order against monopoly. -/- . (shrink)

We formulate an Awareness-Volition algebra on a bipartite Krein space whose positive sector is interpreted as physical realization and whose negative sector is interpreted as phenomenal presentation. A densely defined closed transition with a grading-invariant domain is grading-odd and Krein-self-adjoint if and only if it has an off-diagonal block form determined by a closed operator B from the physical sector to the phenomenal sector. Its directional components, Awareness A and Volition V, are nilpotent Krein adjoints, while their anticommutator defines a (...) nonnegative graded Laplacian. Polar decomposition identifies the two nonzero supports and yields a universal canonical sector geometry, paired nonzero cycle spectra, and a normalized return sign of minus one. For a distinguished physical vacuum state and its phenomenal image Omega, defined by Omega = A applied to the vacuum, one has A applied to Omega equals zero, while projective recurrence, when present, belongs to the completed cycle VA. Comparison with the Hilbert-self-adjoint odd closure identifies the Krein sign as the source of compact rotation, quadrature, and the nontrivial closed-cycle sign. (shrink)

Fundamental to Computer Science is the distinction between abstractions and implementations. When that distinction is applied to various philosophical questions it yields the following conclusions. • EMERGENCE. It isn’t as mysterious as it’s made out to be; the possibility of strong emergence is not a threat to science. • INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HIGHER-LEVEL ENTITIES. Physical interaction among higher-level entities is illusory. Abstract interactions are the source of emergence, new domains of knowledge, and complex systems. • PHYSICS and the SPECIAL SCIENCES. The (...) new domains of knowledge derived from abstract interactions are the basis of the autonomy of the special sciences. • DOWNWARD CAUSATION. It’s a zombie idea that should have a stake put through its heart and be replaced by downward entailment. (shrink)

Das Welt- und Menschenbild des Naturalismus basiert gemäß dem Verständnis seiner Anhänger durchwegs auf wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen. In seltsamem Kontrast dazu steht allerdings der Umstand, dass von naturalistischer Seite meist Vorstellungen über die Ordnung der Natur und die Wirkungsweise der Naturgesetze vertreten werden, welche weitaus mehr auf metaphysischen Glaubenssätzen beruhen als auf empirisch-wissenschaftlichen Befunden. Gewisse dogmatische Züge weisen sowohl die drei „Ismen" Physikalismus, Reduktionismus und Determinismus auf, als auch verschiedene mit ihnen verbundene metaphysische Prämissen naturalistischer Erklärungen, darunter die Annahme, kausale Wirkungen (...) gingen immer und ausschließlich von elementaren Kräften auf der untersten physikalischen Ebene aus. Derartige Annahmen werden im vorliegenden Aufsatz gestützt auf wissenschaftstheoretische Überlegungen mit Bezug zu Physik (vor allem Thermodynamik), Evolutionsbiologie, Synergetik und Komplexitätsforschung kritisch hinterfragt. Als Alternative dazu wird ein Erklärungsschema vorgestellt, welches zwei Denkansätze aus der Naturphilosophie von Aristoteles miteinander kombiniert. Einerseits geht es dabei um seine vier Formen kausaler Erklärungen, und andererseits um drei Stufen der Verwirklichung von Naturvorgängen, nämlich Dynamis (Möglichkeit), Energeia (Wirklichkeit) und Entelecheia (Vollendung). Wer da ein überholtes unwissenschaftliches oder gar mystisches Erklärungsmodell erwartet, irrt sich, denn dieses ist ganz dem naturalistischen Grundsatz verpflichtet, wonach es in der Welt durchwegs mit rechten Dingen zugeht. Die modernen naturwissenschaftlichen Theorien können bruchlos darin integriert werden, auch wenn sie Aristoteles noch unbekannt waren. Sein Naturverständnis ist allerdings weiter und offener als das neuzeitliche Konzept der Naturgesetzlichkeit. Da es jenseits von Reduktionismus und Determinismus zu verorten ist, kann es als Schlüssel zu deren Überwindung dienen. Dies führt entgegen der Erwartung vieler Naturalisten nicht zu einer unwissenschaftlichen, antinaturalistischen Denkweise, sondern zu entscheidenden Fortschritten auf dem Weg, auch menschliches Fühlen, Denken und Handeln natürlich erklärbar zu machen. (shrink)

This study analyzes neural and behavioral events occurring before, during, and after the emergence of a pain quale and the consciousness of that pain to examine the causal efficacy of the quale and consciousness. It finds that events occurring before or concurrently with the emergence of the quale are neither caused nor influenced by the quale or consciousness. Events occurring afterward may also be unaffected by the quale or consciousness if they do not overtly involve phenomenal content. By contrast, activities (...) that explicitly incorporate phenomenal characteristics—such as experiencing, remembering, or reporting the pain quale—are influenced by the occurrence and phenomenal character of the quale or consciousness. Accordingly, qualia and consciousness are not inert. However, their influence does not operate through mechanistic particle–force interactions. Instead, they function as higher-level factors that stand in stable, constitutive counterfactual relations to downstream neural and behavioral effects. Physically, they perform this role by providing the involved neural causal chain with their phenomenal information, which is necessary in initiating and structuring that causal chain and determining the content of the outputs. Nevertheless, qualia and consciousness cannot generate these outputs by themselves; the relevant neural circuits must be present to implement the mechanistic processing required for producing physical effects. Only when both components function together is the causal chain complete and can yield results. Thus, the study concludes that qualia and consciousness influence the neural system and, although they are not mechanistic, independent, or complete causes of physical events, they can be considered causally efficacious in a restricted, information-based sense. (shrink)

Dualists take the mind to be non-physical. Their position is widely taken to preclude causal interactions between the mind and the body. Not only do causal interactions across the physical and non-physical boundary appear mysterious, the physical realm also appears to be self-sufficient in a way that leaves no room for non-physical causes. I review recent work that pushes back against both appearances and aims to defend the possibility of dualist mental causation. I distinguish two families of approaches: those who (...) deny the self-sufficiency of the physical and those who embrace it. I discuss the advantages and challenges of both strategies and suggest that embracing physical self-sufficiency is the more promising path for the dualist. (shrink)

Hylomorphists hold that substances are, in some sense, composites of matter and form. The form of a substance is typically taken to play a fundamental role in determining the unity or identity of the whole. Staunch hylomorphists think that this role is of a kind that precludes the ontological reduction of form to the physical and thus take their position to be inconsistent with physicalism. Forms, according to staunch hylomorphism, play a fundamental role in grounding their bearers’ proper parts and (...) that, it seems, rules out the physical grounding of form itself. I shall develop a physicalist version of hylomorphism that treats form as geometric structure and which, I shall argue, entails many of the central theses endorsed by staunch hylomorphists. Based on Shoemaker’s notion of conditional powers, I shall argue that the geometric structures of complex wholes are the conditions on at least some of the conditional powers of their bearers’ proper parts, transforming those powers into powers simpliciter. Thus, forms play a fundamental role in the dynamical evolution of the physical world, but without bestowing causal powers themselves and hence without violating any empirically plausible version of the causal closure of the physical domain. If a substance’s proper parts are taken to be individuated by their powers simpliciter, then those parts derive their identities from their places in the whole. The form of a whole thus determine the identities of its proper parts, as Aristotle claimed, but on my position, it does so without intrinsic change. (shrink)

Hylomorphists hold that substances are, in some sense, composites of matter and form. The form of a substance is typically taken to play a fundamental role in determining the unity or identity of the whole. Staunch hylomorphists think that this role is of a kind that precludes the ontological reduction of form to the physical and thus take their position to be inconsistent with physicalism. Forms, according to staunch hylomorphism, play a fundamental role in grounding their bearers’ proper parts and (...) that, it seems, rules out the physical grounding of form itself. This chapter develops a physicalist version of hylomorphism which, it is argued, entails many of the central theses endorsed by staunch hylomorphists. Based on Shoemaker’s notion of conditional powers, it is argued that the spatiotemporal structures of complex wholes are the conditions on at least some of the conditional powers of their bearers’ proper parts, transforming those powers into powers simpliciter. Thus, forms play a fundamental role in the dynamical evolution of the physical world, but without bestowing causal powers themselves and hence without violating any empirically plausible version of the causal closure of the physical domain. If a substance’s proper parts are taken to be individuated by their powers simpliciter, then those parts derive their identities from their places in the whole. The form of a whole thus determine the identities of its proper parts, as Aristotle claimed, but on the position defended here, it does so without intrinsic change. (shrink)

This chapter offers a new conception of the metaphysics underlying emergent phenomena. The account works by distinguishing between fundamentality and naturalness (in the sense employed by David Lewis) and by acknowledging perfectly natural properties at non-fundamental levels of reality. Its starting point is Elizabeth Barnes’s proposal to characterize the emergent as fundamental but dependent, criticizing it on the ground that it undermines the theoretical work we need fundamentality to do. Nonetheless, Barnes is on the right track: emergence is linked to (...) a selective metaphysical privileging of higher-level subject-matters. Building on this idea, the chapter proposes an alternative account of the emergent as non-fundamental but (at least relatively) natural. It then develops a framework for thinking about naturalness at non-fundamental levels which makes essential use of the notion of a subject-matter. Drawing on recent work by Jeffrey Russell, it is shown how the naturalness of a subject matter can be modelled in well-understood ways using the machinery of partitions on sets of worlds. The chapter concludes by exploring some initial consequences of the proposed account for debates over emergentism and reductionism. Its overall aim is to make conceptual room for a certain general form of metaphysical emergence which is compatible with supervenience of the emergent. In a slogan: metaphysical emergence is eliteness of higher-level properties. (shrink)

This chapter examines whether the collapse argument against the viability of synchronic emergence also applies to diachronic emergence. The collapse argument draws out a tension between the novelty of the emergent feature and the dependence of that feature on its base. The chapter begins by describing an inferential version of the collapse problem as applied to synchronic emergence. The problem is reframed in terms of dispositions, and it is shown that the synchronic novelty of an emergent property E possessed by (...) an object O can always be undermined by postulating the existence of a disposition, possessed by a part of O, to generate E in the context of the other parts of O. Two different types of dispositions of this kind are examined, and it is argued that neither produces a collapse in the diachronic case. The chapter then proceeds to develop an enhanced collapse problem that applies both to synchronic and to diachronic emergence, and uses this to cast doubt on the safety of allowing so-called micro-latent dispositions in emergent contexts, not least because it permits dispositional properties that never manifest themselves due to the initial conditions of the universe not being suitable for activating them. To conclude, the chapter argues that at the heart of the collapse problem lies a conflict between reducibility and irreducibility and uses this to argue that a methodological approach to the problem is more suited than a metaphysical approach. The prospects for a clean solution along such lines are not, however, promising. (shrink)

This chapter surveys some of the main reasons why ontological emergence has traditionally been viewed with suspicion: its apparent reliance on fundamental bridge laws connecting properties at different levels; its formulation within a levels ontology; and questions concerning the coherence of downward causation and the associated rejection of physical causal closure. It then covers some of the possible ways in which ontological emergence can be demystified, including: showing that no mysterious bridge laws are required for emergence; providing an account of (...) the metaphysics of downward causation; challenging the causal closure of the physical; and challenging the meta-ontological framework presupposed in the traditional debate. The chapter aims to cast light on the other chapters in this book by locating them within the broader context of the debate concerning the coherence of emergence, and viewing them as attempts to make sense of emergence given the various conceptual and empirical challenges that arise. (shrink)

Ontological reductionism and strong emergentism (henceforth ‘reductionism’ and ‘emergentism’) are two broad conceptions of how the discoveries of different sciences might fit together. Reductionism and emergentism disagree about the causal completeness of the processes studied by physics, or equivalently, the closure of such processes with respect to interventions from processes studied by so-called special sciences. This chapter raises epistemological questions about this metaphysical debate: what kinds of scientific evidence are available to address it? Critics of emergentism have charged that it (...) seems attractive only because it is not articulated with enough precision: it is either (i) incoherent, or (ii) anodyne because it fails to exclude a broadly reductionist view of the causal structure of the world, or (iii) inconsistent with key scientific discoveries that support completeness. It is out of place in twenty-first-century philosophy to think that the impossibility of emergentism can be established a priori, so the question posed by this chapter is, how strongly do empirical discoveries really challenge emergentism? It critically examines influential arguments presented by Brian McLaughlin and David Papineau (among others), arguing that it is unclear which specific scientific achievements they cite in favour of reductionism, and that they fatally misinterpret emergentism. Using the relationship between determinism and Newtonian mechanics as a historical parallel, it is also argued that scientists and philosophers sometimes draw far-reaching metaphysical conclusions on slim scientific bases, conclusions which are rejected by later generations. Arguments for the completeness of physics are also the products of hubris and should be abandoned. (shrink)

Aristotle’s hylomorphism, like many contemporary versions of emergentism, motivates the reality and causal autonomy of complex, macro-level substances. After explaining the meta-ontological background that motivates Aristotle’s understanding of matter’s role in hylomorphic composition in terms of potentiality, the chapter divides scholarly interpretations of Aristotle’s material potentiality into two broad strategies. Only one of these strategies is even superficially compatible with emergentism, and even it would require key modifications to certain contemporary articulations of emergence. Further, at a deeper level, the strategy (...) that is potentially compatible with emergentism faces difficulties in maintaining Aristotle’s prohibition against substances being composed of substances—a prohibition which turns out to be related to the contemporary emergentist call for demystification. Adequately addressing these two issues on the ancient and contemporary scenes further reduces the number of compatible candidate interpretations of Aristotle’s hylomorphism, zeroing in on a specific way of interpreting hylomorphism with a meta-ontological background that greatly differentiates it from contemporary versions of emergence. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the emergentist credentials of two different forms of staunch hylomorphism: uniformism and pluriformism. The first section introduces staunch hylomorphism and identifies five features held by its exponents. The second section distinguishes uniform from pluriform versions of staunch hylomorphism. In the third section, three varieties of emergentism are presented and employed in order to evaluate the emergentist credentials of these two forms of staunch hylomorphism. The fourth section presents the basic features of Carl Gillett’s theory of scientific strong (...) emergentism and in the fifth section the staunch hylomorphic credentials of Gillett’s emergentism are examined. It is argued that Gillett’s rich account of emergent entities and their ‘machretic determinations’ is strikingly similar to the claims made by staunch hylomorphism. The chapter concludes with some reasons why machretic strong emergentism should embrace staunch hylomorphism’s realism about forms. (shrink)

While claims of emergence are often articulated with a background assumption that reality consists of higher and lower levels, it has recently been argued, for instance by Elizabeth Barnes, that emergentists should reconsider—and possibly abandon—this assumption. Accordingly, claims of emergence can be articulated more plausibly within a one-level ontology, because the main obstacle to the plausibility of emergence is that emergent causation implies ‘downward causation’. Since downward causation is often found problematic, if emergence is articulated within a one-level ontology (and (...) with no downward causation), it gains more plausibility. This chapter argues that if there is a problem with emergent causation, that problem has nothing to do with the downward nature of emergent causation. Opponents typically find emergent causation problematic because it violates the causal closure of the physical, involving non-physical causes that interfere with the physical domain. But this goes to show that the real problem—if there is one—is that emergent properties are irreducibly non-physical properties. If this is right, locating such irreducibly non-physical properties within a one-level ontology does not solve the alleged problem of emergent causation. (shrink)

There has been a surge of recent interest in a family of phenomena that may broadly be described as emergent. This includes much lively and ongoing debate concerning whether any kind of emergence can be accommodated within a broadly physicalist framework, whether emergence occurs at a time or over time, the role of context and constraint in emergence, and apparent downward causation in scientific case studies, as well as how ancient concepts of fusion, form, and transformation connect with contemporary accounts (...) of emergence. This book brings together historians of philosophy, philosophers of science, and metaphysicians in conversation to address these central questions and to delve into as-yet unexplored points of contact among their varied perspectives. Contributors: Umut Baysan, Daniel De Haan, Barbara Drossel, Carl Gillett, Robin Findlay Hendry, Paul Humphreys, William Jaworski, Anna Marmodoro, Thomas Rosseter, Vanessa Seifert, Anne Siebels Peterson, Michael Silberstein, Alastair Wilson, Jessica Wilson, David Yates. (shrink)

Mainstream philosophy of science is leery of ‘metaphysics’. Unsurprisingly, a scientific movement like that of self-identified ‘emergentists’ that is built around novel ontological relations in nature—and ‘downward’ ones to boot—has too often been written off by philosophers of sciences. This chapter outlines why the received wisdom is badly mistaken about scientific emergentism because it is wrong about a range of foundational issues. The first half of the chapter highlights how working scientists use a more plural variety of ontic models/explanations than (...) has previously been recognized, including compositional ones, and also outlines how researchers use such ontic models in large, plural, and integrated groups termed ‘coalitions’. The chapter hence clarifies the role of a neglected kind of ‘endogenous metaphysics’ in scientific practice. These points are brought together by sketching the ‘Dynamic Cycle’ by which working scientists create, apply, and assess ontological concepts to underwrite such ontic models. Once we get a grip on these foundational issues, in the chapter’s second half it is shown how we can better understand contemporary scientific emergentism as pursuing the Dynamic Cycle of innovating in ontological concepts to provide new models to help with ongoing scientific problems. (shrink)

The study of molecular structure has played a central role in the debate around chemistry’s reduction to quantum physics. So far, this case has been invoked to support the non-reducibility of chemistry. However, recent papers claim that there might not be any structure to be assigned to isolated molecules, thus prompting a deeper investigation of the nature of molecular structure. To this end, this paper explores two alternative accounts of structure: the relational and dispositional accounts. Each metaphysical account has interesting (...) implications for the reduction debate and opens news ways of arguing for (but also against) the reducibility of chemistry. The aim is to show that the debate around chemistry’s reduction needs to be radically reframed so as to include a rigorous metaphysical analysis of the nature of molecular structure. (shrink)

In this chapter, it is argued that Plato was the first to introduce emergence in the history of Western thought, in his dialogue the Theaetetus. Emergence serves to address what would have otherwise been left as an open problem within Plato’s metaphysical system. He conceives of his Forms, for example, of Beauty, Goodness, and so on, as each being one, and assumes that what is one cannot have parts, because what has parts is as many as its parts. Yet he (...) admits in his ontology some Forms that we would call ‘structural’, and thus complex, for example the Forms of Duality and of Equality. If they are complex, do they have parts, and are they thereby many, instead of one each? Plato’s insight, it is argued, is that something can be complex and yet partless. On the strength of this insight, Plato introduces an account of composition in the Theaetetus such that, when it obtains, the resulting entity is complex, arising from many parts/elements, but being itself without parts and hence one. This chapter argues that this is a case of emergence (even if Plato does not have the terminology and conceptual apparatus to identify it as such), since the emergent entity has numerical novelty in relation to its base. It is further argued that Plato’s account of emergence, which is different from modern alternatives, was foundational for Aristotle’s successive theory of substance, particularly with respect to question of the unity of his substance. (shrink)

Is there a need for a distinctively diachronic conception of metaphysical emergence? This chapter argues to the contrary. In the main, its argumentative strategy consists in considering a representative sample of accounts of purportedly diachronic metaphysical emergence, and arguing that in each case, the purportedly diachronic emergence at issue either can (and should) be subsumed under a broadly synchronic account of metaphysical emergence, or else is better seen as simply a case of causation. More specifically, it is argued that emergence (...) as a diachronic causal phenomenon (Mill, 1843; O’Connor and Wong, 2005) can be synchronically accommodated as involving emergent powers of a composite to produce the effects in question; that dynamic emergence (Humphreys, 2008; Mitchell, 2012) can be synchronically accommodated as involving cotemporal dependence on a temporally extended base; that fusion/transformational emergence (Humphreys, 1996, 2016) is plausibly just causation, subject to conditions standardly satisfied in cases of intra-level causation; and that ‘contextual’ emergence (Bishop et al., 2022) is plausibly just causation, where (as per usual) causes (or associated powers or dispositions) enter into producing effects only given the obtaining of relevant background conditions. (shrink)

Even though physicists often claim that their theories can, in principle, be reduced to the supposedly most fundamental theory, which is quantum physics, a look at how physics is practiced reveals that this reduction is almost never performed. Instead, effective models are built that include various types of contextual information and that are often incompatible with the supposedly fundamental theory. The phenomena described by these models can be characterized as contextually emergent. This chapter illustrates contextual emergence by means of examples (...) from different fields of physics. In quantum physics, explanations of the measurement process require the assumption of a classical context that specifies the observable being measured and that induces the measurement event. In condensed matter theory, we find many types of quasiparticles that can only exist due to the solid that embeds them and the structure of which determines the properties of the quasiparticles. In thermodynamics, state variables such as the pressure and temperature of a system are given by its environment, and its phase transitions are triggered by changes in the environment. In the early universe, the degrees of freedom and the density and temperature determine the types of particles that are found in the universe. Later, the overall properties of the universe determine whether matter can condense to form stars. From all this it follows that processes and descriptions at different scales are equally important in physics. There are even contextual influences from outside physics. The chapter will thus conclude that physics is not causally closed. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness has historically been a major driver of discussions pertaining to emergence. As the only forms of emergence on offer in these discussions were strong and weak emergence, very little progress was made. Herein a new type of emergence is offered to move forwards. Contextual emergence (CE) holds that the world is structured as follows: properties and behaviours in a particular domain or at a particular scale (including its laws) at best offer some necessary but no (...) sufficient conditions to determine properties and behaviours in another domain or at another scale. Hence, the world is a complex web of irreducibly multiscale extrinsic dispositions. CE explains both how novel properties are produced and why they matter. CE emphasizes the equal fundamentality of multiscale contextual constraints and relations in scientific explanation. Contextual features are therefore not merely inputs, boundary conditions, essential background conditions, and so on. Contextual features can involve dynamical/causal interactions or adynamical/acausal constraints of various sorts. The most complete explanation for any phenomena is going to involve multiscale contextual features. CE and Jamesian neutral monism go hand in hand, and together they fully deflate the hard problem. Taken together they allow us to break the metaphysical gridlock between ontological identity theories, strong emergence, and panpsychism on the one hand, and the corresponding scientific gridlock between bio-mechanistic and broadly functionalist, computational, information-theoretic, and structural accounts of consciousness on the other. Furthermore, taken together, these two open new directions for the enactivist and radical empiricist-based science of consciousness. (shrink)

Physicalists and dualists share a common understanding of the natural world: the physical universe, they say, is a vast sea of matter and energy that can be in principle described by our best physics. Both are committed to denying that physical materials can combine to form emergent individuals—composite individuals with powers distinct from those of the physical materials composing them. Emergentists disagree, which commits them to a composition operation different from the fusion operation of standard mereology, which latter implies that (...) the behaviour of composite individuals can be exhaustively explained in terms of the behaviour of their parts. According to emergentists, composite individuals have powers different from any of the powers of their material parts taken either individually or in combination. A composition operation of the required sort can be found in Aristotle’s hylomorphism, which claims that individuals are composed of physical materials with a form. A form is not an agent in its own right, distinct from the individual whose form it is; a form is, rather, that individual’s ongoing act of regulating, constraining, and configuring the materials that compose it. Opponents of hylomorphism have argued that because of its commitment to strong supervenience relations the theory faces problems with downward causation. In this chapter it is argued that these arguments are mistaken. Some trade on misunderstandings about supervenience and causal closure; others commit the fallacy of begging the question insofar as they depend on assumptions about the nature of causation that hylomorphism rejects. (shrink)

Recent scholarship in classical Islamic philosophy has shown that the tradition has much to offer when it comes to the metaphysics of causality. The present article seeks to add to the scholarship by providing a new interpretation of one aspect of Avicenna’s account of causality known as the “Rule of One” (henceforth, RO). Seeming to originate with Avicenna, the RO states that “From that which is one, only one can proceed.” The aim of this brief article is to examine Avicenna’s (...) argument in Metaphysics IX.4. The reconstruction of the argument adds to a growing body of English literature on the topic of Avicenna’s contribution to causality and provides a necessary exegetical understanding of his work that enables a deeper understanding of the Islamic tradition. By focusing on Avicenna’s argument in Metaphysics IX.4 the present article seeks to pick up where other commentators have left off, explaining why Avicenna holds to the RO when it comes to his cosmology. (shrink)

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that the same agential states can cause different possible actions. Nonreductive physicalism is, roughly, the view that mental states cause actions to occur, while these actions also have sufficient physical causes. Though libertarian free will and nonreductive physicalism have overlapping subject matter, and while libertarian free will is currently trending at the same time as nonreductive physicalism is a dominant metaphysical posture, there are few sustained expositions of a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian (...) free will – indeed some tell against such an admixture. This paper concocts such a blend by articulating and defending, with some caveats, a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian free will. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the project of naturalising agency, where agency can be broadly understood as the ability to choose and control one's actions on the basis of one's own purposes, goals, or reasons. Such agency is central to the basic phenomenology of our everyday existence as human beings, to how we come to understand ourselves and the world around us, and to the social, moral and legal practices that structure our societies. It is also (...) fast becoming a critical concept for addressing emerging issues in the ethics of artificial intelligence and animal rights. -/- Yet, despite its profound existential, societal and ethical importance, we still lack a robust understanding of the concept of agency from the perspective of the natural sciences. Part of the reason for this is a widespread and long-standing belief that agency - and related concepts such as freedom, purpose, and meaning - carry with them certain metaphysical commitments that are fundamentally incompatible with the picture of the world as it is given to us by science (what is sometimes known as a naturalistic worldview or metaphysics). This belief has led many scientists and philosophers to conclude that our concept of agency is, in fact, an illusion - a non-natural, unscientific notion that exists in our phenomenology, but not in the 'real world'. -/- In this thesis, I push back on these conclusions by developing an empirically grounded account of biological agency. I show how several of the core features (or types) of agency that are commonly claimed to be mysterious and unscientific are in fact perfectly consistent with a modern scientific worldview. To do this, I consider a series of challenges for agency that have emerged out of the philosophy of action, behavioural neuroscience, and the philosophy of free will. Each challenge targets the scientific credibility of a particular feature of agency: specifically, (i) macroscopic, agent-level control, (ii) purposive or mental causation, and (iii) the ability to 'do otherwise' and make genuine choices. I draw on recent empirical work from across the natural sciences to argue that these features are in fact supported by modern science. I do this by developing an empirically grounded framework for thinking about living systems and their behaviour (within each of the specified contexts) which, I argue, provides an entirely naturalistic and non-mysterious account of the relevant feature of agency. That is, I argue for a novel view of naturalistic metaphysics that appears to resolve many of the existing scientific concerns about the concept of agency. I then end by considering some recent attempts to extend a similar concept of agency into the domains of developmental and evolutionary biology. I argue that, in their current form, these attempts are not successful. (shrink)

In neuroscience, the search for the causes of behaviour is often just taken to be the search for neural mechanisms. This view typically involves three forms of causal reduction: first, from the ontological level of cognitive processes to that of neural mechanisms; second, from the activity of the whole brain to that of isolated parts; and third, from a consideration of temporally extended, historical processes to a focus on synchronic states. While modern neuroscience has made impressive progress in identifying synchronic (...) neural mechanisms, providing unprecedented real-time control of behaviour, we contend that this does not amount to a full causal explanation. In particular, there is an attendant danger of eliminating the cognitive from our explanatory framework, and even eliminating the organism itself. To fully understand the causes of behaviour, we need to understand not just what happens when different neurons are activated, but why those things happen. In this paper, we introduce a range of well-developed, non-reductive, and temporally extended notions of causality from philosophy, which neuroscientists may be able to draw on in order to build more complete causal explanations of behaviour. These include concepts of criterial causation, triggering versus structuring causes, constraints, macroscopic causation, historicity, and semantic causation—all of which, we argue, can be used to undergird a naturalistic understanding of mental causation and agent causation. These concepts can, collectively, help bring cognition and the organism itself back into the picture, as a causal agent unto itself, while still grounding causation in respectable scientific terms. (shrink)

The idea that consciousness is somehow needed to collapse the wave function was emphasized especially by Eugene Wigner in 1961 and has recently been discussed by e.g. David Chalmers and Kelvin McQueen. We revisit the reasons why the idea was proposed in the first place and briefly consider Chalmers and McQueen’s discussion.

The philosophical problem of free will has endured through centuries of enquiry. There is reason to believe that new factors must be integrated into the analysis in order to make progress. In the current physicalist approach, emergence and the physical limits of information representation are found to play crucial roles in the ontological dependence of volitional processes on their neural basis. The commonly invoked characterization of free will as 'being able to act differently' is shown to be problematic and is (...) reframed as a more precise explicatum conducive to formal analysis. Subsequently, it is found that the mind operates as an ontologically open system — a causal high-level entity whose dynamics resist reduction to the states of its associated low-level neural systems, even under conditions of physical closure. An affirmative stance on free will for conscious agents is outlined. (shrink)

Whether the interventionist approach to causation can deal with variables occurring at different levels has been the subject of lively debate. According to an argument by Baumgartner, variables standing in supervenience relations to each other lead to a particularly detrimental version of the classical exclusion problem. However, many authors seem to agree that this problem can be efficiently avoided if variables standing in supervenience relations are given special treatment in the context of interventionist causal models. This chapter argues that the (...) interventionist exclusion problem cannot be easily fixed, since the standard approach to avoiding it implies that the confounding factors for the causal relations described by a model are not adequately taken into account. Furthermore, it argues that multilevel causal structures can only be captured in a causal modelling framework if causal models are required to satisfy aptness conditions that rely on metaphysically ‘thick’ notions, such as the distinction between metaphysical and nomological modality, the grounding relation, or the assumption that properties can be ordered in terms of their degree of naturalness. (shrink)

The paper critiques two recent suggestions, by Lei Zhong and Thomas Kroedel, about how to apply the interventionist theory of causation to cases where supervenient properties, particularly mental properties, are involved. According to both suggestions, we should hold variables corresponding to supervenient properties fixed when intervening on the subvenient properties with respect to a putative effect variable and vice versa. The paper argues that both suggestions are problematic. Zhong’s suggestion ultimately requires ad hoc exemptions from the holding-fixed requirement. Kroedel’s suggestion (...) entails severe constraints on the construction of causal models. Overall, retaining the holding-fixed requirements of interventionism for cases of supervenient properties comes at a significant price. (shrink)

The standard objection to dualist theories of mind is that they seemingly cannot account for the obvious fact that mental phenomena cause our behaviour. On the plausible assumption that all our behaviour is physically necessitated by entirely physical phenomena, there appears to be no room for dualist mental causation. Some argue that dualists can address this problem by making minimal adjustments in their ontology. I argue that no such adjustments are required. Given recent developments in philosophy of causation, it is (...) plausible that mental phenomena cause behaviour in standard dualist ontologies. (shrink)

Setting aside all exclusion-style worries about the redundancy of postulating additional, non-physical mental causes for effects that can already be explained in purely physical terms, dualists who treat mental properties as supervening on physical properties still face a further problem: in cases of mental-to-mental causation, they cannot avoid positing an implausibly coincidental coordination in the timing of the distinct causal processes terminating, respectively, in the mental effect and its physical base. I argue that this problem arises regardless of whether one (...) treats the mental cause as causing both the mental effect and its physical base, or whether one treats the latter as having instead been caused by some physical state, and that the problem also does not depend on which theory of causation one adopts. A third option of treating the mental cause and its physical base as producing the mental effect and its physical base by a single causal process that they both contribute to is found to come up short as well. (shrink)

The causal closure of the physical poses a familiar causal exclusion problem for the special sciences that stems from the idea that if closure is true, then fundamental physical properties do all the causal work involved in bringing about physical effects. In this paper I aim to show that the strongest causal closure principle that is not ruled out by some simple physics in fact allows for a certain kind of downward causation, which in turn makes room for robust special (...) science autonomy. I focus on the case of vector composition, arguing that it involves irreducibly multilevel causation. To give a complete causal explanation of what goes on in cases that involve the effects of multiple forces, we need to appeal not only to the fundamental properties that generate those forces, but also to geometric properties that determine how multiple vectors compose. However, if all the causal work involved in such cases were due to fundamental physical properties, there would be a one-level explanation available. Hence, I argue, it cannot be the case that fundamental physical properties do all the causal work. The extra causal work, I suggest, comes from the fact that the causal powers bestowed by fundamental physical properties have irreducibly geometric manifestation conditions. I defend the resulting form of downward causation as a solution to the problem of special science autonomy, and discuss two potential accounts of its source, in terms of the debate between kinematic and dynamic theories of the origins of spacetime symmetries. (shrink)

Is there such a thing as mental causation? Is it possible for the mental to have causal influence on the physical? Or has the old “mind over matter” question been rendered obsolete by the advent of brain science? Whatever our answers to these questions, it seems that we cannot systematically pursue them without considering what makes mental causation problematic in the first place: The causal closure of the physical world. This paper revisits the problem of mental causation by drawing on (...) a classical debate between Dharmakirti and the Indian materialists. The main argument of the paper is that expanding our conception of causality to accommodate phenomenal content can cast new light on the problem of mental causation. A satisfactory solution to the problem of mental causation must reject the completeness of the physical principle in favor of conceptions of causality that allow for phenomenal properties to play a causal-explanatory function. (shrink)

Supporters of the autonomy of higher-level causation (or explanation) often appeal to proportionality, arguing that higher-level causes are more proportional than their lower-level realizers. Recently, measures based on information theory and causal modeling have been proposed that allow one to shed new light on proportionality and the related notion of specificity. In this paper we apply ideas from this literature to the issue of higher vs. lower-level causation (and explanation). Surprisingly, proportionality turns out to be irrelevant for the question of (...) whether higher-level causes (or explanations) can be autonomous; specificity is a much more informative notion for this purpose. (shrink)

The amazing thing about the I is that on the one hand it has no final limit anywhere, and on the other hand it is unique. And moreover, that this is true for every place of effect. Because it means that there is a priority hierarchy of effects that extends into all the other individuals - those extended I's and places - without merging with them. So I - as an infinite individual - create my reality completely, including heaven and (...) earth. More or less consciously. What remains after the death of my awake conscious ego are the realities of other individuals. And after humanity, there are all the other realities. But are the worlds of other individuals real to me? Yes, insofar as I can put myself into them, return back, and remember that potential. And insofar as all unlimited individuals attune out of these movements an approximate reality that is less alien (but still individual) to them. This book contains the articles Omnipresent Consciousness and Free Will, How Consciousness Creates Reality, and Dynamic Existence. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that many scholars involved in the contemporary free will debates have underappreciated the philosophical appeal of agent causation because the resources of contemporary emergentism have not been adequately introduced into the discussion. Whereas I agree that agent causation’s main problem has to do with its intelligibility, particularly with respect to the issue of how substances can be causally relevant, I argue that the notion of substance causation can be clearly articulated from an emergentist framework. According (...) to my proposal, a free agent is _a causally powerful substance that emerges in an anomic way from her constitutive mental events_, downwardly constraining, selecting and, in this way, having control on them. As we shall see, this particular concept of agent causation not only makes sense of the deep insight behind agent libertarianism, but it also provides us with the resources to solve some of the main objections that have been raised against it. It is true that here I cannot develop a complete defense of the evidential credentials of emergentism. Still, even if the considerations that follow do not serve to convince detractors of agent causal libertarian accounts of free will, they do suggest that libertarian agent causation is more promising than is typically acknowledged. (shrink)