What I don't see in the mechanisms of downward causation offered so far — 'social constraints', 'the mind is software' and so forth — is an attempt to ground a free rational responsible person. Perhaps I missed something, but, in the context of the mechanisms offered so far, the person cannot be in control of downward causation.

If downward causation is indeed beyond the control of the person, then this flies in the face of rationality, as I have argued before.

The neurons don't need to act in accord with the intention since the intention isn't directed at the neurons. — Pierre-Normand

According to you, neurons don't need to act in accord with the intention to raise one arm ....

Unless you are willing to retract this claim, our discussion ends here.

Our thoughts are not instructions for neurons at all. The intentional contents of our beliefs and intentions aren't directed at neurons.

If so, how does downward causation work? How do we get from the intention to raise one’s arm to neurons which act in accord with that intention?

They're typically directed at objects and states of affairs in the world. Our neurons need not be told what to do anymore that transistors in computers need be told by the software what to do.

Excusez moi? In order to be functional, to act how and when they need to act, transistors in computers do need software instructions.

The installed software is a global structural property of the suitably programmed computer. What it is that the transistors are performing -- qua logical operations -- is a function of the context within which they operate (i.e. how they're connected with one another and with the memory banks and input devices). Their merely physical behavior only is governed by the local conditions, and the laws of physics, regardless of the global structure of the computer.

You forget about the role of software information, which is part of the global structure.

The hardware must only be suitably structured in order to deal adequately with the software instruction; it need not have instructions translated to it. If the high level code needs to be compiled or interpreted before it is run it's only in cases where the hardware is general purpose and it's native instruction set isn't able to run the code directly.

You are mistaken. No computer can run programming language/source code directly, translation to machine code is always necessary, unless, of course, you start with machine code. However our deliberations, thoughts and intentions are anything but ‘machine code’. Behold the gap.

The task of the compiler (or interpreter), though, isn't to translate high level instructions in a language that it understands.

Again, you are mistaken, it is exactly that.

The neurons need not understand what their individual roles is in the underlying causal chain anymore than transistors in a computer need understand anything about their electrical "inputs".

Such a level of understanding is not at issue here. What transistors need are clear instructions. Obviously they don’t need to 'understand' anything else, let alone their position in the scheme of things.

To be clear, I am not saying that the hardware/software analogy furnished a good or unproblematic model for the body/mind relationship. The purpose of the analogy is quite limited. It is intended to convey how top-down causation can be understood to operate unproblematically ...

The translation problem — from deliberations and intentions to instructions for neurons — persists.

Is that not analogous to the claim that the chess program is the computer?

Do you say that the mind is analogous to software? If so, that would paint a rather inert picture of the mind. In this context I would rather say that software are the instructions for the brain. One problem is, how do we write those?
Notably, writing instructions doesn't get any easier by the fact that the brain is constantly reorganizing; synaptic connections are constantly being removed and others created — neuroplasticity. The brain is nothing like the rigid and fixed circuits of computer hardware.

Software needs hardware to run on ...

To pursue this unproductive analogy, software needs a programmer in order to exist.

Daniel 'we are all zombies' Dennett.

His claims are debunked here and here.

The intention does not get translated into instructions for the neurons and needs not get so translated.

That is rather surprising.

In my analogy, talk of intentions, beliefs, perceptions, actions, etc., already occurs at the functional "software" level.

So, our intentions, deliberations and thoughts are direct instructions for neurons. Neurons listen in and understand our mental stuff directly and know what to do? No problemo?

Neurophysiology enables it rather in the way the hardware enables the software to run in the case of a computer.

So, likewise, the computer programmer can write instructions that directly govern the logical manipulation of significant symbols and not concern herself with the task of the compiler, interpreter, or hardware.

Well, in order to function, hardware does require translation of high-level programming language, so this analogy seems inapt.

The programmer need not concern herself with the way in which the hardware enables her program to run.

Because a compiler — translator — bridges the gap. Right?

The high level software causally directs and controls the steps in the computational task, while the hardware enables but doesn't direct the execution of the intended calculations or symbolic processes.

Am I missing something? Where is the translator (compiler) in this narrative?

The abstract mind, instantiated on the computationally universal brain, decides to move an arm.

If the mind is the brain, and is produced by neuronal behavior, then the whole path from intentionality to neural change is a purely physical affair. There is no gap between the ‘mental’ and the physical, so no need for a mechanism to close any gap. I have no questions concerning this scenario, other than how matter can be intentional.
If instead the ‘emergent’ mind is independent from neuronal behavior, if it can reach down, by free will of its own, and cause neural change, I would like to know how this works.
If, as a third possibility, the mind is 'semi-independent' or something, please provide a clear picture.

It does not know the mechanism of how this is performed, because it does not need to.

If the mind is independent from neural behavior, then there is, by definition, a gap between the mind and neurons. Again, if there is no such gap, no such independency, I have no questions. Assuming the gap exists, I would like to know how the hoovering consciousness reaches down causally effective and on what basis it chooses between various options.

The mechanism involves layers of sub-conscious neuronal control systems ...

In my book it makes no sense to term neuronal systems 'sub-conscious'. Anyway, how does the independent mind control those 'sub-conscious' neuronal control systems?

EDIT:

Because we don't believe in magic, there cannot be any other explanation ….

Regarding an explanation of the existence of the universe, we are either stuck with the incoherent concept of infinite regress or a First Cause. IMHO there is some 'magic' involved in both explanations, so who are we to not believe in ‘magic’?

My point was that you are talking a monadic substance approach to consciousness - the usual outcome of reductionist simplicity.

Indeed, I view consciousness as indivisible and I have provided several arguments. In response all you have offered is derogatory talk and avoidance.

And all that was by way of dealing with the original point - what we would really mean by "top down acting consciousness". To remind you, I was explaining how constraints depend on semiosis and that in fact our human interaction with the world has at least three distinct levels (and so at least three distinct levels in which those constraints are evolving).

If we are talking about the neural level, for example, then that means the top-downness is to do with attentional and intentional brain processes.

Please do continue. Explain voluntary agency. Explain how an emergent self-aware consciousness directs its neurons. Let’s start modestly. Explain what happens when one chooses to raise one’s arm. Explain the mechanism from intention to neural change. And explain how the “I” knows which neural parts to change and which not.
In this post you find an attempt by a kindred social construct named Jason Runyan. Consider my questions in this post as addressed to you.

p.s. you can skip the part about being social constructs and so forth. We know that already.

There appears to be a trend in modern philosophy to deny the reality of the "I", the "self", reducing the "I" to simply a part of the community in some anti-reductionist manner. This I believe is a mistake. It is a mistake because it belittles the separation which exists between you and I. The separation between us is very real and needs to be respected. Without having complete respect for this separation we have no hope of providing an adequate understanding of the nature of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Autonomous, responsible, free personhood is a prerequisite to rationality.
If external forces beyond my control shape me with insurmountable arbitrary constraints and if there is nothing but blind ‘potentiality’ running into those imposed constraints, then I am not in control over my actions and thoughts. And if I am not in control over my actions and thoughts, then I am not rational. And if I am not rational then I ‘have no hope of providing an adequate understanding of the nature of reality.’

I am unhappy with the question in my previous post. It does not make sense at all. My mistake. I retract that question.

What I am happy about is the remainder of that post and the questions before that, which are still unaddressed.

But my position deals with your "I" on three Pragmatic levels - genetic, neural and linguistic. All three are explained semiotically as habits of regulation that are produced by more general contexts. — apokrisis

Still unresponsive.

If there is not an "I" who encompasses all three levels, how can you overview and be aware of those three levels?

The returning irony is of course that your analysis of the "I" cannot exist if it was correct. Somehow the source of your cherished narrative must be exempt of the constraints and divisions you claim to exist.
The others are mistaken and necessarily so, because they are reading from the "script", produced by forces beyond their rational control, but surely that does not hold for "you".

---
p.s. Here you can find everything you ever need to know about 'homuncular regress'

Okay, that was (again) absolutely unresponsive. Try again:

If there is no "I" who perceives and understands the facts of social science, then how can you be aware of the facts of social science? If there is no a consciousness of succession in one and the same conscious subject, how can you be aware of the fact that you continue to stick with the facts of science? Without the consciousness of succession, without the retention of the earlier states in the present state, no such conclusion could be arrived at.

hint: "I am a social scientist" is not an answer.

Heard it all before a million times. But I stick with the facts of social science. — apokrisis

Who sticks with the facts of social science?
If there is no "I" who perceives and understands the facts of social science, then how can you be aware of the facts of social science? If there is no a consciousness of succession in one and the same conscious subject, how can you be aware of the fact that you continue to stick with the facts of science? Without the consciousness of succession, without the retention of the earlier states in the present state, no such conclusion could be arrived at.

Of course you can't doubt it ... given that you are in existence as a socially constructed self regulatory habit of thought. — apokrisis

A thought cannot exist without a thinker.

What you are neglecting is that the "I" here is a socially constructed concept enabled by the learnt semiotic habit of speech. — apokrisis

A concept understood and held by … what?

In the final analysis, in is nit you pulling the strings. You are just responding … — apokrisis

The term “you” refers to … what?

So you do have freewill — apokrisis

How is freedom grounded in this context? And what is it that is free?

Also, if “I” am free to a certain extent, how do “I” cause ‘my’ neurons to change? How do “I” know which neurons to change and which not? How does a 'socially constructed concept' control matter at will?

So forget "consciousness" with all its antique Metaphysical connotations. — apokrisis

I experience something therefor I exist. In order to experience something it is logically required for me to exist.
I doubt my existence … In order for me to doubt my existence I must exist. I cannot doubt my existence if I don’t exist.
Maybe my thoughts are infused by a Lügengeist, maybe everything I think I remember is a lie. Still … I must exist in order to be lied to.
Maybe I think that I exist because I am socially instructed to think that. Nope. In order to be socially instructed to think anything I must exist.

I cannot doubt my existence. I exist. Undeniably so.

EDIT: Bill Vallicella arguing in favor of consciousness. Excellent philosophy.

In order to ground personhood, freedom and rationality it is not enough to argue that some top-down causation takes place. This top-down causation must be such that the emergent consciousness is in control over its actions and thoughts. However, I do not see how this is possible on an emergentist account.

The following quotes are from the book 'Human Agency and Neural Causes: Philosophy of Action and the Neuroscience of Voluntary Agency', by J.Runyan:

In this case, when I choose to raise my arm, I, as a macro-level whole, cause certain neural changes for which there are no sufficient subpersonal causes.

How does the "I" select with great care between so many options of neural changes? And how does the "I" cause certain neural changes to occur?

As a result, certain neural activities lead to patterns of muscle contractions and extensions, etc., in my body. So certain neural activities cause bodily motion when I choose to raise my arm, and these neural activities occur, in part, because I cause certain neural changes when I choose to raise my arm.

When I choose to raise my arm, certain neural changes occur. Okay. But again, how does that work?

Thus, as a macro-level whole, in a certain state, I cause change in the motion of parts of my physical constitution—including my neural parts—that is not caused by any of my parts, including any of my neural parts.

Neural changes are caused by the “I” — the macro-level whole. But again how does this “I” do that? What is the mechanism here? And how does the “I” know which neural parts to change and which not?

So then—on an emergentist account—when, for example, an individual is voluntarily exercising working memory, and holding information in thought in order to complete a task, by doing so, as a macro-level whole, they are causing a change in the activity states of certain neurons in the prefrontal cortex.

By holding information in thought the “I” is causing a change in neurons? How does that work?

Or when an individual is deliberating and progressing toward a decision, they, as a macro-level whole, are causing certain changes in neural activity throughout multiple regions of the brain, by deliberating, or thinking certain thoughts.

How do thoughts cause neural change? How do they cause the correct neural change? And how is thinking distinct from neural activity?

There are two possibilities here:
1) Emergent consciousness has control over neurons, in which case I would like to know how this works.
2) Emergent consciousness does not have control over neurons, in which case personhood, responsibility, freedom and rationality is not possible.

You are being unresponsive to my questions.

This is how we are being "programmed", to get back to the computer analogy. — Pierre-Normand

I did not ask how we are being programmed. Instead I asked how emergent consciousness commands/ programs neuronal behavior.

Organisms strive to survive, under local constraints, since those who don't so strive die off and fail to reproduce. — Pierre-Normand

This is not an explanation. You note that ‘striving to survive’ is necessary for life to succeed, and from there you go to (paraphrasing) 'and therefore organisms strive to survive’. This is not an explanation, since organisms don't necessarily exist.
Moreover, in order for ‘striving to survive’ to be one thing — contrary to a collection of unrelated behaviors — there must be a binding principle like ‘fear of death’, which logically requires a concept of death.

The person -- the human being -- is responsible. The "higher level" isn't a higher level of neurological activity. It's a functional level (see functionalism in the philosophy of mind) of mental organization that relates to the lower level of neurology rather in the way that the software level relates to the lower hardware level in the case of computers...
... I am rather looking for a final (intelligible/teleological) cause -- something like a goal or reason -- because of the form of the question and the formal nature of the event: Why did so and so intentionally do what she did. — Pierre-Normand

To pursue the analogy, how is an intention translated into instructions (‘software’) for neurons? And what power does emergent consciousness have over matter, such that ‘creating software instructions’ is an apt analogy?

Attention acts top down by applying a state of selective constraint across the brain. … top down integrative constraints are how the brain works. — apokrisis

How does an emergent consciousness know which constraints to apply? Why do neurons make sense to an emergent consciousness? What knowledge and power does emergent consciousness have so that it can command neurons?

The broader question I am asking here is about the interaction problem wrt emergentism.

It is only when early replicators not only were passively selected by environment pressure according to fitness, but also began to strive to survive and replicate, that they could be considered alive. — Pierre-Normand

Yep. That was the point. Life has meaning because ... there is death as its contrast. So because of biosemiosis or a new symbolic level of action, an organism could become a survival machine. — apokrisis

A question about ‘striving to survive’:

Why is it that e.g. a bacterium avoids death? Does it fear death? Does it even have a concept of death?

Or do you guys assume that ‘striving to survive’ is just one of those things that ‘emerges’ due to a ‘limit’ or some similar 'cause'?

No-one says the universe floats in nothing ... — apokrisis

No-one? Are you sure? Tell me, what is the universe floating in?
BTW a close reader would have noticed that I did not make a claim about our universe. I was talking about a (hypothetical) universe floating in nothingness.

... let alone that this would be what gives it a shape. — apokrisis

You agree with my point.

When we look at what the laws refer to as real existing "constraints", we can refer to those constraints as "causes".
But this is to use "cause" in the sense of an influence, something which affects activity. We can say that these constraints have an affect on specific activities, and in this sense they are causes. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. “Real existing” is a crucial qualifier here, since if constraints have no ontology, how can they have causal powers? Consider a bucket filled with water. If we term the bucket a ‘constraint’, then indeed one can say that the bucket causes (or influences) the water to have a certain shape. But how does this apply to a universe floating in nothingness? Assuming that this universe has a certain shape, we cannot coherently say that ‘nothingness’ causes the shape of this universe, because nothingness cannot have causal power, cannot constrain anything. So unless we are talking about “real existing” constraints, like buckets, we cannot coherently talk about them as being causal actors.

This perspective assumes that the atom is the cause of the relationships which constitute it. From the premise that a cause is necessarily prior in time to the effect, this means that the atom must exist before the relationships which constitute it exist. To my mind, this is impossible, to say that a thing exists prior to the existence of its constituent parts. To resolve this, we could say that the idea of the atom exists prior to the constituent parts, as the "blueprints" for the atom, but then we are no longer referring to the atom itself, but a Neo-Platonic "Form" of the atom, which acts as the cause of existence of the atom. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with your clear analyses.

Perhaps one could claim, as Apokrisis may do, that the shape of an atom is a fortunate ‘limit’ which its constituents run into. So, not the atom is the cause of the relationships which constitute it, but the ‘limit’ is the cause. Moving downward, the constituents of the atom are, in turn, also the result of ‘states of unbounded potential’ running into ‘limits’...

To cut a long story short, it is 'limits' all the way down, up and sideways.

So, starting from "everythingness", there are just all these fortunate ‘limits’ which shape the universe and the stuff in it.

One of the problems with this view is that the positioning of limits is in need of explanation. Limits can produce any possible universe, so why are those limits positioned so fortuitously that we end up with a stable universe fine-tuned for intelligent life? What are the chances that random limits produce human brains, spaceships, jet airplanes, nuclear power plants, libraries full of science texts, novels and super computers running partial differential equation solving software?

I just wanted to outline my dispute with Apokrisis. Here you can read why I hold that Dawkins' Weasel and Apokrisis' emergence narrative are very similar. In that post you can also find a critique which applies to evolutionary theory. However I decline to offer an in depth critique of evolutionary theory, which would be off-topic.

I think this is missing Apokrisis's point. — Pierre-Normand

My claim (see this post) is that Apokrisis' emergence narrative ( see this post) is very similar to Dawkin's Weasel Program. His counter-argument, as I understand it, is that there is a fundamental difference because Dawkin's Weasel has an unexplained starting point and his emergence narrative has not (?).
I do not agree that there is a fundamental difference.

From the moment of abiogenesis onwards natural selection became a top-down (and teleological) causal process. — Pierre-Normand

I hold that naturalistic evolutionary theory is incoherent and I also hold that it does not describe a top-down and/or teleological cause.

Your claim:

It is a central problem of evolutionary theory that evolution can only explain the reduction in variety. It can't explain the presence of that variety in the first place. — apokrisis

The problem with your claim is that evolutionary theory can explain variety. Variety is explained by random mutations in the DNA.
So I replied:

random mutations. — Querius

Your response:

So natural selection can certainly remove those. But how does natural selection also create them?
(It's a basic issue in evolutionary science.) — apokrisis

Here you are talking about ‘random mutations’ and asked: ‘how does natural selection also create them?’ ...
I have tried to read this charitable. I supposed that you were not asking ‘how does selection remove random mutations and also create random mutations?’ That would be a very confused question.
So, again, trying to read your question charitable, I did suppose that your question is not about random mutations, but about variety in general, as in ‘how does selection also create variety?’
So I replied:

Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations. — Querius

Your response:

Why are you babbling about mutations? — apokrisis

I leave it to the unbiased reader to decide, who is babbling here.

My point about your weasel was that the letters already exist. So how did that situation develop? Recombination is one thing. But where did that alphabet come from? If you want to say it evolved, run me through the story. — apokrisis

Let me google that for you.

... the problem is that you don't understand the current science well enough ... — apokrisis

So sayth the emergent self who is confused about the roles of mutation and selection in evolutionary theory.

how does natural selection also create them? — apokrisis

Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations.

It's a basic issue in evolutionary science. — apokrisis

Basic indeed, and I wonder why I have to explain it.

Your scrambled sentence already begins with the counterfactual definiteness of some set of letters ...

I do suppose that at some point your emergence narrative also gets passed the phase of nothingness.

… a conventional set of marks which I know how to read and thus can tell a gibberish sequence from one that has a reasonable interpretation.

Irrelevant.

And your citing of Dawkins and evolutionary constraints continues to underline that you are nowhere near the kind of holistic emergence I am talking about.

Not an argument. You talk of ‘limitations’, how is that not comparable to constraints?

It is a central problem of evolutionary theory that evolution can only explain the reduction in variety. It can't explain the presence of that variety in the first place.

Random mutations.

Existence begins not with nothing but instead an "everythingness" - a "state" of unbounded potential. And then limitations develop to produce definite somethingness. ...
Complexity and particularity arises as the general … becomes more constrained in specific ways. History locks in its own future by removing certain possibilities as things that could actually happen. And the future is then woven from what was thus left open as a possibility. — Apokrisis

This narrative seems akin to Dawkin’s Weasel program. Also here we have ‘unbounded potential’ at the start: 'WDLTMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO P'. And next ‘limitations develop to produce definite somethingness’. And indeed ‘complexity and particularity arises as the general becomes more constrained in specific ways’. And yes also ‘history locks in its own future by removing certain possibilities as things that could actually happen.’ And at generation 43 ‘METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL’ emerges.

The two stories are a perfect fit.

The problem for Dawkins is that he has to explain the existence of well-crafted boundaries (fitness landscape) which produce the target sentence. IOWs where did that fitness landscape come from? Such a landscape potentially exists for any phrase whatsoever, and not just for METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Dawkins's evolutionary algorithm could therefore have evolved in any direction, and the only reason it evolved to METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL is that he carefully selected the fitness landscape to give the desired result. Dawkins therefore got rid of Shakespeare as the author of METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL, only to reintroduce him as the (co)author of the fitness landscape that facilitates the evolution of METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.

The same problem for strong emergentism: it has to explain the existence of well-crafted limitations which produce order. Strong emergentism gets rid of order by natural laws, only to reintroduce order as following from ‘limitations’. It’s the same magician’s trick. Dawkins hides Shakespeare in the landscape and the emergentist hides the ordering principle in ‘limitations’.

"It just is" is perhaps even more mysterious than "something else made it this way", but it tries to pretend to be anti-mysterious and obvious to escape any worrysome metaphysical issues that arise when people start thinking. — darthbarracuda

This reminds me of the famous 1948 Copleston vs. Russell debate on the existence of God. At one point Russell counters Copleston's argument from contingency by saying:

I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all.

... a realist would say that a "law of nature" is a real tendency or habit that governs actual things and events, but is not reducible to them. If a law is merely a description, then there is no good reason to think that it would apply to future behavior, since different things and events are involved; yet we make successful predictions all the time, not just in science, but in everyday living. — Aletheist

An excellent argument in favor of the fundamental irreducible nature of laws, which, as far as I can see, no one has attempted to address.

It is not a claim that there is something at the bottom that we must not seek an explanation of. — Pierre-Normand

However, if you are correct, it is the claim that there is not necessarily something at the bottom.
Unless one argues that there is something up there and/or sideways, then what we have is 'emergence from nothing'.

Bitbol's paper is titled "...without Foundations". … There need not be an ultimate level at the bottom, and strong emergence allows us to dispense with the need for one. Yes, in a sense, it's emergence all the way... But there need not be a bottom, fundamental, level. — Pierre-Normand

Emergence from nothing it is.
There are those who demand understanding and those who do not.

What makes you think that some laws are fundamental and some aren't? — Pierre-Normand

Correct me if I am wrong, but does the very concept of 'emergence' not imply a lower level of (more) fundamental laws? Emergent stuff emerge from fundamental stuff, right?
Unless you are arguing that it is emergence all the way down, which seems incompatible with the concept of emergence, I do not see the relevance to a discussion about fundamental laws.

EDIT: Emergence does not explain the level on which it sits.

I take it that you are not attempting to explain fundamental laws with emergence. As such the topic emergentism is irrelevant to our discussion.

I would have thought 'the placebo effect' provides a cogent example of top-down causation. — Wayfarer

I agree. Also every post on this forum is a cogent example of top-down causation. Question is, do we find such causation in inanimate nature.

I am not sure how a discussion about emergentism is relevant to fundamental laws of nature. As I have stated before I have no problem with a secondary (emergent) law like ‘every snowflake is 6-sided’, as a direct consequence of fundamental laws.
So, unless you are arguing that laws at the fundamental level can be explained by emergence, I refrain from commenting on Bitbol.

Hah. ... So they are an example of top-down causality ... So snowflakes are a good example of an effective solution - a global equilibrium balance that reshapes the very stuff out of which it is being formed. What you call "fundamental" is what has got fundamentally pwned. — apokrisis

Sean Carroll in his book ‘The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself’, Dutton, 2016 writes:

A standard example given by proponents of top-down causation is the formation of snowflakes. Snowflakes are made of water molecules interacting with other water molecules to form a crystalline structure. But there are many possible structures, determined by the initial seed from which the snowflake grows.
Therefore, it is claimed, the macroscopic shape of the snowflake is ‘acting downwards’ to determine the precise location of individual water molecules.
We should all resist the temptation to talk that way. Water molecules interact with other water molecules, and other molecules in the air, in precise ways that are determined by the rules of atomic physics. Those rules are unambiguous: you tell me what other molecules an individual water molecule is interacting with, and the rules will say precisely what will happen next. The relevant molecules may indeed be a large part of a crystalline structure, but that knowledge is of precisely zero import when studying the behaviour of the water molecule under consideration. The environment in which the molecule is imbedded is of course relevant, but there is no obstacle to describing the environment in terms of its own molecular structure. The individual molecule has no idea it’s part of a snowflake, and could not care less.

<my emphasis>

The chaos, the crystal's chance path, during the formation of snowflake fractals is comfortably situated in the context of our orderly stable lawful universe. IOWs it is not chaos all the way down. It is chaos embedded in order.
Moreover the law ‘every snowflake is six-sided’, which emerges due to symmetry/equifinality, is fully determined by underlying more fundamental laws, such as the laws which dictate what binding angles are permissible for water molecules.

My point is: sure you can watch some pretty amazing things emerge in nature by a combination of law and chance/chaos, but this does not tell us that chaos can explain the natural laws.

The circle simply illustrates the basic principle that a symmetry is defined by differences not making a difference.

Yes, I got that. The point I was trying make is that I do not see how unregulated chaos can produce anything other than … unregulated chaos. ‘Symmetry’ implies repetitive patterns, which are, as I envision it, absent in chaos.

Unlawfulness comes in once we start talking about symmetry in the sense of dynamical equilibrium states - or broken symmetries that can't get more broken and so ... become effective or emergent symmetries again.
And this is better illustrated by a gas of particles. At equilibrium, every particle is as likely going forward as going backward. So all action settles to a collective average.

Such phenomena can only take place in a stable orderly lawful universe. If instead our starting point is utter unlawfulness/chaos, we would not know what to expect. Given unlawfulness, particles could pop out of existence for no reason at all. The collection of particles could turn into anti-matter and/or form a conglomerate. During observation the cosmological constant could shift followed by an instant implosion of the universe. And so forth. Thorough unlawfulness all the way down is completely unpredictable.

... The ground state becomes a new effective symmetry - the ball rolling around in the circle of the trough - which the world then reads off quantumly as a new degree of freedom or an actual particle.

What you are talking about are events and laws that result from more fundamental laws. I have no problem with that idea, as long as it not offered as an "explanation" of laws at the fundamental level.

Are you talking about laws or constants? Or laws with different constants? That is, do you have a clear story on how they are the same or different kinds of things?

I am talking about laws and their constituents.

There is a speculative mathematical description of how gravity behaves ....

That would be a description of the law of gravity.

However, this description is not gravity.

Indeed. A description of a thing is not the thing itself.

Gravity is something we feel and affects objects. There v is no law of gravity, there are just some tentative equations which may be useful for synchronizing clocks.

From 'descriptions of the law of gravity are not the real thing’ it does not follow that there is no actual law of gravity.

… we just have useful mathematical equations but certainly no laws.

Useful mathematical equations are not actual laws of nature, but that simple fact does not tell us that there are no laws of nature.