Consider a simple logic switch, say an AND gate. It takes two binary inputs, and has one binary output. If both inputs are 1, then the output is 1. If either input is 0, the output is 0.
Isn’t this downward causation? The set of inputs is a higher-order object than the output, and a fact about the set of inputs that isn’t contained in any individual input determines the value of the output.
This example is trivial, but if this is downward causation, but we can expand it to an arbitrary number of inputs all influencing a single output. It also doesn’t seem to depend on the inputs and outputs being binary.
Shouldn’t this imply that we would expect downward causation between much more disparate orders, up to and including between the macroscopic world and fundamental particles?
Is the number of possible input states relevant? We could have more. We can wire multiple logic switches together to handle more and more inputs. We can have as many as we want.
And they could detect any pattern we want – while the output of an AND switch is fully determined by a single 0, a XOR switch depends on both.
So if we take a set of inputs as large as the number of particles in my body, and run it through a pattern detector that detects the representation of “me making a choice to do XYZ”, and channel the output into a machine that sets the spin on an electron. And that looks a lot like me making a choice having a direct downward causal effect on the behavior of an electron.
One thing I notice in spelling this out is that I’m treating the logic switch as a black box, when in reality more complex patterns require more complex logical circuits to instantiate. There could be a kind of ‘speed limit’ on downward causation, and the intervening steps could break emergence. I’ll need to think more about that.
Can you provide more context on your logic gate example? For example, explicitly define: the system; what is high/low order; the feedback mechanism, etc.
From what I can tell, you don’t really understand the concepts and limitations.
The system is just a conceptual logic gate that takes multiple inputs and produces a single output of the same kind.
The relationship between the inputs is a higher order than the inputs or output.
Because the output is of the same type as each input, the output from one gate can be the input to another.
As I mention above, there may be an issue in translating from a conceptual system to a physical system, though I’m not sure how that would work even in the abstract: If we take two spins as input and set a third spin as output based on the relationship between them, whatever happens physically in the black box, it seems like the 1st order physical state of the output is caused by the 2nd order relationship between the inputs.
Without a well-defined system containing a recursive feedback mechanism, you’re doomed to spinning your wheels. You don’t seem to be able to provide it.
For one your logic gate example is far too simplistic, which you seem to be starting to understand. For another, you don’t seem to understand that typically the product of an AND gate would be considered to be higher-level as it’s the PRODUCT. Seems like you need to get a much better understanding of the basic concepts underlying all this before attempting to draw meta-conclusions from it.
And it matters because we can build plenty of more complex systems out of logic gate analogues, and get recursion by plugging outputs back into inputs.
What definition of ‘higher level/order’ are you using? In e.g. complex systems, order would not be determined by the history of a thing, but by its components and their interactions. In that sense, a system is always higher-order than its components, and inputs and outputs are components of a logic gate.
Are you treating the output as including both the binary 1 or 0 and its meaning e.g. XOR? That composite could be of a higher order than the binary digit alone, but there’s still a question of downward causation on a component of that composite, i.e. the binary digit alone.
Sorry, but based on what you’ve written thus far, your understanding of this topic is poor. Akin to someone whose understanding of chess is limited to how the pieces move and the basic tactical motifs, yet thinks that they can discuss chess on a high level. They can’t. You can’t.
As a matter of curiosity, what’s your background with computer hardware and software? You don’t seem to understand much about that either.
I have a different understanding of downward causation / strong emergence.
I don’t think what you described counts, for one very simple reason: every single component in a logic gate is behaving as it would be expected to behave, given it’s local environment, without any regard for the larger structure it’s a part of.
Strong Emergence / Downward Causation requires, imo, the opposite of that.
Requires that you can pinpoint some moment where this component is behaving in an UNEXPECTED way given it’s low-level local rules of behaviour, but it’s behaving that way because of the larger thing it’s a part of.
“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.”
As I understand it, there is two way traffic there between components. But in the logic gate example, that traffic is exclusively one-way, the child does not affect the parent, at least not directly, some devised loop or..
Wait. Of course logic gates feed back into themselves.
Cause and effect are thus reversed in an essentially recursive process .
Oh.
The emergent phenomenon then forms an attractor for neighboring components that are not yet involved in the interaction (f.i. clustering, condensation, crystallization).
Getting out of my depth.
In open, complex systems, downward causation is achieved through feedback from the environment.
If the gate’s neighbours and remote influencers can be considered its environment, then why not?
I’m starting to think the correlation is not a daft idea..
Yes. So I believe that is possible for practically anything, any sufficiently complex system is made of components that obey simple rules. Quantum might mess up that idea a bit, but maybe it’s just our limited understanding of quantum phenomena getting in the way? I don’t know, I understand quantum mechanics like I understand doing accounts. I don’t think it’s sufficient to exclude sufficiently complex assemblies of binary logic gates from the definition of Downward Causation that I’ve read. Some details don’t cross over so well, but the main concept, seems to me, to support the logic gate example.
I can, of course, be wrong, and am happy to be corrected.
I assumed that people who design and test logic assemblies, no matter really how large, would have the ability to do that, but then they would have to consistently record all of the states for an area of logic, obviously that doesn’t happen in day to day. I might be sorely mistaken, I don’t know, For larger areas, it would generate huge volumes of data, even over the span of ms, but that data would provide full analysis and traceback.
So in that regard, it’s certainly possible to pinpoint the state the gate, and all it’s surrounding gates, were in at the time a component of the system doesn’t behave in the expected way.
Once again, might be wrong, but it sounds logical..
OK so when i asked if you can pinpoint it, the answer is no, you can’t. You just suppose that someone else can.
I don’t suppose the same. I don’t suppose there’s any moment where the components of logic gates somehow override their local rules of operation and become aware of the bigger picture that they’re part of. Each part does what it does, exactly as expected, and that’s how they were designed - they were designed such that each component wouldn’t have to be magically aware of the big picture to work, each part just does what each part does, no big-picture-awareness necessary.
I just loosely described a method for pinpointing it. Can you find holes in its application? You don’t think they are recording every single state that’s relevant when they develop complex logic?
Not the individual components though.. Of course they don’t become aware, but neither do the components of anything else. But a highly complex system constructed using those components? Who are you to say logic assemblies can’t do that? Software is just an assembly of logic, and AI is software. They can also pinpoint errors in AI by using the same methodology. I don’t feel like you are applying the definition evenly, but if I’ve missed something, please let me know.
Similar to the fundamental forces in the Universe. No big-picture-awareness necessary. Is each component in what Downward causation describes different to how I am defining it? Are the components “aware” of a bigger picture?
For downward causation to happen, SOMETHING has to be “aware”, in some sense (perhaps not literally), of the bigger picture. If nothing is sensitive to the bigger picture, then … well then, everything is behaving as it would according to its own local rules.
If no big-picture awareness is necessary, then imo no downward causation is happening. No strong emergence.
Logic gates aren’t mysterious, by the way. They’re a basic building block of modern computers. If there’s strong emergence there, downward causation, you don’t have to suppose anything, you can just link me to reliable documents of experts agreeing with you. I don’t think any documents like that exist.
Please don’t make me do this, I know it’s not much of a definition of a method, but it’s a method nonetheless:
Some.. ASSEMBLY. No individual component when reduced to it’s most fundamental level can be “aware”, it can be influenced, or it can influence.
No, I am not taking it that far yet, because I think we disagree on the very definition of DC, and to be honest, I don’t think you are applying it evenly to logic gates and other abstract assemblies of rules in our Universe, you are talking about assemblies not components when you say “aware”, but you are applying that to only components in the other application. We would need to straighten that out first.
I haven’t said anything about abstract assemblies of rules in our universe, so… how could I possibly be applying it unevenly? I’ve only applied what I’m talking about to one thing, Logic Gates. I have no idea what you’re talking about.