The Conditions for Emergence and Downward Causation
- What Are The Conditions That Block "Bottom-Up" Causation (Reductionism)?
- The lower level must be a source of thermal and quantum noise to
"decohere" and destroy coherent "causal" motions from below
- We will demonstrate such noise with animations between
physical and biological and between biological and mental levels
- What Are The Conditions that Allow "Downward Causation"?
- The upper level must exert causal control over structures in the lower level
- We will demonstrate downward causal control over atoms and molecules
(over probabilities, though not over wave function ψ amplitudes)
- What Conditions Allow The Emergence of Fine Downward Causal Control?
- The upper level must be an information-processing system
- The "life" level must create "order out of order" using a source of negative entropy
- The mind level must create "information out of order," thoughts to guide action.
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