In philosophy, downward causation is a causal relationship from higher levels of a system to lower-level parts of that system: for example, mental events acting to cause physical events. The term was originally coined in 1974 by the philosopher and social scientist Donald T. Campbell.
In science, downward causation is considered to be a causal interaction between two or more components that, in turn, influences the origin of that interaction. Cause and effect are thus reversed in an essentially ...