Recognising Top-Down Causation

TL;DR

This paper challenges the traditional bottom-up view of causation in physics and biology, arguing for the importance of top-down causation in understanding complex systems like the brain and computers.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of top-down causation as a fundamental aspect of complex systems, expanding the traditional causal framework in physics and biology.

Findings

Top-down causation occurs in biological and computational systems.

Examples include the arrow of time and state vector preparation.

Recognizing top-down causation is essential for understanding complexity.

Abstract

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 wrong in many cases in biology, and in particular in the way the brain functions. Here I make the case that it is also wrong in the case of digital computers - the paradigm of mechanistic algorithmic causation - 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.