Downward Causation: Useful or Misguided Idea?

[ruby sparks]

However improbable it may sound that minds could exist somehow alongside brains, I think this idea would have a better prospect than the irredeemable confusion inherent in the notions of emergence and of levels of description.

Iow, and I think the OP article touched on this, our notions of what is 'higher' and what is 'lower' may to some extent be conventions. I agree that this seems possible and fruitful. In a way, it's not entirely unlike the plausibility of saying that the hard drive is instantiated on the information instead of the other way around.

But by reversing our intuitive descriptions, or adding 'laterally' to 'up' and 'down', I don't think we could avoid discussing directionality completely though. 'Forwards' and 'backwards' would still have to be considered, I think.

Best example I can think of is time. I'm guessing we could for example all agree that the present and the future do not affect the past.......almost certainly.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

And, consequently, I would insist that mixing different levels of causality in one causal explanation is likely to end up in equivocation, especially if you're not Schrödinger.

I guess we will just disagree. To be clear, I do agree that confusion is likely. But I'm not sure why it would take the form of equivocation - I don't agree with your assessment of the word "cause" -, and in any event, it does not need to happen just because one talks of stuff at different levels when talking about causes.

Henrik Røed Sherling
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/...ard-causation/

your argument against the existence of downward causation boils down to the incompatible vocabularies of lower-level and higher-level theories? I.e. that there is no such thing as a gluon in Fluid Dynamics, nor anything such as a fluid in the Standard Model, so a cause in one theory cannot have an effect in the other simply because causes and effects are different things in the different theories; gluons don’t affect fluidity, temperatures and pressures do; fluids don’t affect gluons, quarks and fields do.

He's not right (well, he might be right in his interpretation of Carroll, but then Carroll is not right). The fact that the vocabularies of the models are different does not imply or even suggests that the stuff modeled by one of the models does not have a causal effect on the stuff modeled by the other model. For example, just because one theory (i.e., Relativity) deals with gravity but not with electromagnetism or the other known forces, but another theory with a different language (i.e., the Standard Model) that deals with the other forces but not gravity, does not mean there is no gravitational effects on the stuff described by the Standard Model.

In short, this idea that there cannot be causation because there is no gluon in Fluid Dynamics, etc., is mistaken. I would say it's so because it's confusing the map with the territory. But when we talk about causation, we can properly talk about the territory, without being limited to a single one of our partial maps (and we can do that because reality is not our maps and is not so limited).

 

[untermensche]

There are evolutionary issues. Things may appear randomly but they only persist if they serve a purpose.

Why would the brain go to all the trouble to create both a representation of the bear and a thing aware of the representation if the thing aware has no ability to do anything?

A mind that can take no action is not needed.

Yes, that is another point in favour of thinking that conscious thoughts probably do something.

On the other hand, I have nipples.......

I think a refutation of (uncausal) epiphenomenalism would be needed here, but I don't think there is one.


ETA: I am, actually, inclined to guess that conscious thoughts do affect things (even if I allow I might be wrong), but.....you and I would disagree on when and how much the affect is. I am of the (provisional) opinion that my mind may not, in fact, cause my arm to rise. But if we get into that we will just disagree. I cannot show conclusively that I am right. So, while there may not be good enough reasons to assume mind is not doing things, there are enough reasons, imo, to at least doubt (mostly from neuroscience). Iow, there are not enough good reasons to assume it is doing things (in any particular scenario) either, or indeed exactly what things it is possibly doing.

You have nipples?

What does that mean?

Do your nipples think they can move your arm?

Why exactly should we discount the clear experience of wanting the arm to move and then moving it by doing something with our minds?

When exactly did that clear experience become dubious?

 

[ruby sparks]

I don't think that zombies can happen and doing logic in a formal manner feels like something to do ...

'I don't think that' and 'feels like'? What's next, 'I think the sun goes around the earth because it seems to?'

That something is capable of multiple instantiations doesn't make it independent of the physical, just independent of particular structures. I can tell you your house is on fire by email, morse, shouting, writing, firing a signal rocket with a prearranged signal and so on, but 'meaning just ain't in the head'.

Hm. I am not claiming to be sure, but, sticking my neck out to see if it gets chopped off, if the same information can be in two separate physical bases, then.....that means the 'information itself' is not of either of the bases (say for example cheese or copper).

 

[ruby sparks]

You have nipples?

What does that mean?

Do your nipples think they can move your arm?

I have nipples even though they don't do anything. It was meant to illustrate that even under evolutionary pressures, things can persist that have no function, or that can be neutral, or 'junk'. It's a counterpoint to your (valid) point about evolutionary issues.

Why exactly should we discount the clear experience of wanting the arm to move and then moving it by doing something with our minds?

When exactly did that clear experience become dubious?

Imo, there is enough neuroscience to suggest that this may not be the case. I don't particularly want to have a ding dong about it. The evidence is not conclusive. What you are saying, basically, is that it is the case because it feels like it. You must have more confidence in the reliability of your perceptions than I do.

 

[Speakpigeon]

However improbable it may sound that minds could exist somehow alongside brains, I think this idea would have a better prospect than the irredeemable confusion inherent in the notions of emergence and of levels of description.

Iow, and I think the OP article touched on this, our notions of what is 'higher' and what is 'lower' may to some extent be conventions. I agree that this seems possible and fruitful. In a way, it's not entirely unlike the plausibility of saying that the hard drive is instantiated on the information instead of the other way around.

But by reversing our intuitive descriptions, or adding 'laterally' to 'up' and 'down', I don't think we could avoid discussing directionality completely though. 'Forwards' and 'backwards' would still have to be considered, I think.

I'm agnostic as to what is the case in reality. My suggest framework is essentially to avoid confusion. I agree with your point on directionality. The paradigm of "strong emergence" usually assumes the possibility of downward causation. The framework I'm proposing is meant to replace it. The confusing notion of "downward causation" just disappears in this case and instead we would just have straightforward interactions, in both directions, as we have between a brain and its environment.

Best example I can think of is time. I'm guessing we could for example all agree that the present and the future do not affect the past.......almost certainly.

Yes, we're all very sure now about that. We have a 100% consensus on that.

Only a future special commission on the subject could make us change our mind.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I guess we will just disagree. To be clear, I do agree that confusion is likely. But I'm not sure why it would take the form of equivocation - I don't agree with your assessment of the word "cause" -, and in any event, it does not need to happen just because one talks of stuff at different levels when talking about causes.

He's not right (well, he might be right in his interpretation of Carroll, but then Carroll is not right). The fact that the vocabularies of the models are different does not imply or even suggests that the stuff modeled by one of the models does not have a causal effect on the stuff modeled by the other model. For example, just because one theory (i.e., Relativity) deals with gravity but not with electromagnetism or the other known forces, but another theory with a different language (i.e., the Standard Model) that deals with the other forces but not gravity, does not mean there is no gravitational effects on the stuff described by the Standard Model.

In short, this idea that there cannot be causation because there is no gluon in Fluid Dynamics, etc., is mistaken. I would say it's so because it's confusing the map with the territory. But when we talk about causation, we can properly talk about the territory, without being limited to a single one of our partial maps (and we can do that because reality is not our maps and is not so limited).

Well, we don't have a direct access to the territory here, only to the maps and they don't usually coincide.

I'm not disputing that causation can be reasonably seen as occurring across the board and across the macroscopic/microscopic divide, only that it's likely, though not necessarily, to cause confusion through equivocation between our different descriptions of causal relations.

I'm still not sure as to how we disagree here but I guess we can agree we disagree and leave it at that for now.
EB

 

[ruby sparks]

Yes, we're all very sure now about that. We have a 100% consensus on that.

Only a future special commission on the subject could make us change our mind.
EB

I'm fairly sure there are probably boffins working on it as we speak. They might be discussing wormholes in spacetime or something.

It's sort of annoying that we don't really know for sure if an experience of a conscious intention to move an arm comes before an arm move or not, or during or after, in any particular 'arm manoevure'.

 

[DBT]

Well, there are certainly areas that are more dedicated than others: Broca's, Wernickes' and so on. Lose or damage these and there are fairly predictable deficits. If you are going to be running a deep grooved massively parallel network simulating serial processes then you want to keep it out of the way of areas that deal with information in a more superpositional way.

Of course, I have never said or intentionally suggested otherwise.

Sure, but that's a bit like saying that pulling the legs off spiders makes them go deaf. You trash the ability to store and restore information and it makes it hard for processing to happen even if everything else is working just fine.

I don't trash anything of the sort. I don't know where you are getting these assumptions from. I can't include everything concerning brain architecture and function when I am just making brief remarks and speaking generally. One aspect of brain function being mentioned does not necessarily exclude other aspects, nor should that be assumed to be the case.

 

[DBT]

You have no idea what consciousness is.

It is a completely unexplained phenomena.

Nothing is known about it objectively.

You have no grounds to make claims about what it can and cannot do.

There is reflexive brain controlled respiration and there is the ability to take a deep breath at will.

Rubbish. There is enough evidence to show that what effects the brain in turn effects its ability to generate consciousness, alcohol, drugs, physical trauma, chemical imbalance, etc, etc, etc.

All this has been pointed out to you numerous times, including studies, references and quotes. You can't face the fact that conscious brain activity equals conscious experience. The existence of multiple feed back loops and information input from multiple regions of the brain doesn't change the fact of brain agency, brain state and condition.

This is only about the 50th time you have presented this seriously flawed argument.

It's not my argument. All the available evidence supports the proposition that it is the brain and the brain alone is responsible for generating and shaping consciousness/subjective experience according to its neural architecture, state and condition in any given moment in time, basically; information input via the senses, memory function/recognition of patterns/information processing.

How the brain forms consciousness is not known, but it is clear that it does.

Let me try to make it simple for you.

Funny.

It is a hypothesis that some kind of unknown brain activity creates consciousness.

You ignore the evidence that supports brain state is reflected in experience.....drink enough alcohol and you get drunk, your vision is effected, your ability to reason, response times, etc, etc.....all because, wait for it; your brain chemistry is effected by the alcohol you have consumed.

This is not a hypothesis, It is a fact. A fact that even you yourself can test.

A person under the influence of LSD can still move their arm at will.

It just looks a lot cooler.

Holy Mother of God....don't you realize that motor action function is not switched off while under the influence of LSD or any recreational drug, including alcohol, unless you consume too much and lose consciousness?

Losing consciousness means the brain is so effected by the drug that it can no longer generate conscious activity, or intentional motor actions such as lifting your arm at 'will'


Movement Intention After Parietal Cortex Stimulation in Humans;
''Parietal and premotor cortex regions are serious contenders for bringing motor intentions and motor responses into awareness. We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot, whereas stimulating the left inferior parietal region provoked the intention to move the lips and to talk. When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected. Stimulation of the premotor region triggered overt mouth and contralateral limb movements. Yet, patients firmly denied that they had moved. Conscious intention and motor awareness thus arise from increased parietal activity before movement execution.''

A parietal-premotor network for movement intention and motor awareness
''It is commonly assumed that we are conscious of our movements mainly because we can sense ourselves moving as ongoing peripheral information coming from our muscles and retina reaches the brain. Recent evidence, however, suggests that, contrary to common beliefs, conscious intention to move is independent of movement execution per se. We propose that during movement execution it is our initial intentions that we are mainly aware of. Furthermore, the experience of moving as a conscious act is associated with increased activity in a specific brain region: the posterior parietal cortex. We speculate that movement intention and awareness are generated and monitored in this region. We put forward a general framework of the cognitive and neural processes involved in movement intention and motor awareness.''

 

[untermensche]

You have nipples?

What does that mean?

Do your nipples think they can move your arm?

I have nipples even though they don't do anything. It was meant to illustrate that even under evolutionary pressures, things can persist that have no function, or that can be neutral, or 'junk'. It's a counterpoint to your (valid) point about evolutionary issues.

I question your claim that nipples have no use.

If something is a sexual signal and a sexual stimulant then it makes reproduction more likely and has a use.

Things with no use do not persist. They wither away.

The mind is robust and encompassing.

Human minds are not withering away.

Imo, there is enough neuroscience to suggest that this may not be the case.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest anything about consciousness.

Consciousness is not understood at all objectively.

Science does not know what it is.

There is a hypothesis that the consciousness is some kind of unknown effect from some kind of unknown activity going on in the brain.

 

[Subsymbolic]

All the available evidence supports the proposition that it is the brain and the brain alone is responsible for generating and shaping consciousness/subjective experience according to its neural architecture, state and condition in any given moment in time, basically...

That's simply not true.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-externalism/

For a start.

 

[Subsymbolic]

I question your claim that nipples have no use.

If something is a sexual signal and a sexual stimulant then it makes reproduction more likely and has a use.

Things with no use do not persist. They wither away.

The mind is robust and encompassing.

Human minds are not withering away.

Imo, there is enough neuroscience to suggest that this may not be the case.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest anything about consciousness.

Consciousness is not understood at all objectively.

Science does not know what it is.

There is a hypothesis that the consciousness is some kind of unknown effect from some kind of unknown activity going on in the brain.

Nipples exist because the human body plan is generic. Sex differences modify that basic plan. As such, we have nipples wired as they are because women have them and so on.

If you are going to engage in biological arguments, a bit of biology goes a long way. In this case, a bit of neurobiology would go a very long way. We've got most of the so called easy problem of consciousness nailed, which is certainly more than knowing nothing. The hard problem is badly misunderstood, even by the guy who coined the term

 

[untermensche]

This is only about the 50th time you have presented this seriously flawed argument.

It's not my argument. All the available evidence supports the proposition that it is the brain and the brain alone is responsible for generating and shaping consciousness/subjective experience according to its neural architecture, state and condition in any given moment in time, basically; information input via the senses, memory function/recognition of patterns/information processing.

There is no evidence the brain cannot be influenced by the mind.

None.

There is no evidence the mind cannot influence the brain.

None.

There is no understanding of what the consciousness is objectively.

None.

You ignore the evidence that supports brain state is reflected in experience.....drink enough alcohol and you get drunk, your vision is effected, your ability to reason, response times, etc, etc.....all because, wait for it; your brain chemistry is effected by the alcohol you have consumed.

Saying the magic words "brain state" explains absolutely nothing about consciousness.

All you are saying is the consciousness needs a normally functioning brain to do the things it can do.

You are not in any way saying the consciousness cannot effect the brain.

You have no argument or evidence that demonstrates the consciousness cannot effect the brain.

 

[untermensche]

I question your claim that nipples have no use.

If something is a sexual signal and a sexual stimulant then it makes reproduction more likely and has a use.

Things with no use do not persist. They wither away.

The mind is robust and encompassing.

Human minds are not withering away.

Imo, there is enough neuroscience to suggest that this may not be the case.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest anything about consciousness.

Consciousness is not understood at all objectively.

Science does not know what it is.

There is a hypothesis that the consciousness is some kind of unknown effect from some kind of unknown activity going on in the brain.

Nipples exist because the human body plan is generic. Sex differences modify that basic plan. As such, we have nipples wired as they are because women have them and so on.

If you are going to engage in biological arguments, a bit of biology goes a long way. In this case, a bit of neurobiology would go a very long way. We've got most of the so called easy problem of consciousness nailed, which is certainly more than knowing nothing. The hard problem is badly misunderstood, even by the guy who coined the term

How exactly do you know the effect of not having nipples?

I have a lot of biology.

The human does not have a body plan. Two people mate and a random combination results. No plan. Just two cells that unite and grow or don't. That is the whole idea of evolution. No plan.

Every human is an experiment. Every organism is an experiment.

Things that provide a utility persist and become more efficient.

Things of no use tend to fade away.

 

[Juma]

All the available evidence supports the proposition that it is the brain and the brain alone is responsible for generating and shaping consciousness/subjective experience according to its neural architecture, state and condition in any given moment in time, basically...

That's simply not true.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-externalism/

For a start.

Eh. Can you explain how that article helps your argument?
Lots of obvious silly examples there. H2O XYZ is easily solved by viewing both substances as water. No real problem.

”Intention” is a result of people needing to understan/predict actions of the other members of the family/tribe?

 

[untermensche]

Where is the evidence that when a mind experiences it is making a decision it is not making a decision?

 

[ruby sparks]

Things with no use do not persist. They wither away.

If that were true you wouldn't still be around. A neat refutation, I think.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest anything about consciousness.

Unfortunately, that's just complete and utter bollocks. Other than that it's a good point. It's entertaining if nothing else.

 

[ruby sparks]

Where is the evidence that when a mind experiences it is making a decision it is not making a decision?

Someone hasn't examined the literature, on either evolution or neuroscience.

 

[ruby sparks]

All the available evidence supports the proposition that it is the brain and the brain alone is responsible for generating and shaping consciousness/subjective experience according to its neural architecture, state and condition in any given moment in time, basically...

That's simply not true.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-externalism/

For a start.

Eh. Can you explain how that article helps your argument?
Lots of obvious silly examples there. H2O XYZ is easily solved by viewing both substances as water. No real problem.

”Intention” is a result of people needing to understan/predict actions of the other members of the family/tribe?

I think he's just saying that it isn't just the brain, but the brain and the rest of the body, and the environment outside both, as an overall configuration, which gives rise to experience. Since he converted me to externalism, I have to agree with him on that.