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.

No-one? Are you sure? Tell me, what is the universe floating in? — Querius

What do you mean by "float"? In what sense could that be a property the Universe is said to possess.

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'?

But intentional human behavior also has a higher level characterization where it is evaluated in point of practical rationality

...

The neural cause of a specific muscular contraction can tell you why some muscle contracted at the time that it did, and hence why an arm rose but it leaves you clueless as to why the agent raised her arm (or even whether the motion was intentional at all). It's only from the standpoint of the rational/teleological organization of the cognitive economy of an individual as a whole that rationality transpires and that sensitivity to practical reasons is manifested as a form of top-down causation. — Pierre-Normand

Ok, so you have described a "higher level" of neurological activity, which you say is responsible for the intentional, rational, free will acts. Since you can identify no efficient cause for this activity, you assign the cause to the "individual as a whole". Now we have some extremely vague notion of, "an individual as a whole" being the cause of this neurological activity. Why is it that you believe that this vague notion of "an individual as a whole", being the cause of this activity, is a better description than the classical description which holds that the immaterial soul is the cause of this activity?

Anyway. Causality is dichotomous because that is simply how metaphysical development works. — apokrisis

When we consider causation in its primary sense, as active cause, like I described, there are two distinct types of active causes, we have efficient causes and final causes. One refers to the active cause of physical changes and the other refers to the active cause of intentional acts. In the secondary sense of "cause", the passive constraints which influence the active causes, affecting the effect of the causes, there is also two types. Here we have material constraints and formal constraints. So we have the four types of causation identified by Aristotle here, two primary, active causes (efficient and final), and two secondary, passive causes, (material and formal).

We have bottom-up construction matched by top-down constraints. Each is the cause of the other (as constraints shape the construction, and the construction (re)builds the generalised state of constraint). — apokrisis

This is nothing more than a vicious circle. Construction builds constraints and constraints constrain the construction. The whole point in attempting to determine which is primary, a procedure which you call "laughable", is to avoid such a vicious circle Which is really more laughable, the vicious circle, or the attempt to avoid it?

It is freedom that constructs bottom-up. The role of top-down constraint is to give shape to that freedom. So constraints (as the bloody word says) are all about limiting freedoms. They take away or suppress a vast variety of what might have been possible actions ... and in so doing, leave behind some very sharply directed form of action. Or as physics would call it - to denote the particularity that results from this contextual sharpening - a "degree of freedom". — apokrisis

This model makes no sense at all. You assume a "freedom" which constructs from bottom-up. What could this freedom be constructing other than constraints? But it cannot be constructing constraints, because the constraints as you say are top-down, limiting freedom. And why would freedom be constructing constraints anyway, this is opposed to its nature? Further, the assumed "freedom" cannot be constructing freedom, because it already is freedom, according to the assumption. So what is this freedom, which constructs from bottom up supposed to be constructing? And what kind of thing, which has the power to construct, do you propose "freedom" refers to?

I agree. “Real existing” is a crucial qualifier here, since if constraints have no ontology, how can they have causal powers? — Querius

The issue I see with "real existing constraints", and why I used that phrase, has to do with the nature of the artificial prescriptive laws of how human beings ought to behave. These are constraints which are created by human beings, such as ethics, societal laws, etc.. We can see these laws as real existing constraints, but they dictate how we ought to behave, and the subject ultimately has the capacity to disobey those laws. Therefore they are radically different, ontologically, from the natural constraints which we assume dictate the way that natural inanimate physical objects behave. The inanimate physical objects do not have the capacity to disobey these natural constraints.

And why would freedom be constructing constraints anyway, this is opposed to its nature? — Metaphysician Undercover

How is it opposed to its nature if the constraints are responsible for its nature?

Which is really more laughable, the vicious circle, or the attempt to avoid it? — Metaphysician Undercover

Obviously the attempts to avoid it. Or rather, the failure to understand how hierarchical organisation is not viciously circular at all.

How is it opposed to its nature if the constraints are responsible for its nature? — apokrisis

Isn't this contradictory to say that constraints are responsible for freedom? I don't know how that could work. Besides, you've assumed freedom as the starting point, and freedom constructs. So it cannot be constructing constraints which are responsible for its freedom, because it already has freedom prior to constructing.

Or rather, the failure to understand how hierarchical organisation is not viciously circular at all. — apokrisis

Well, I've seen you attempt to explain your understanding of hierarchical organisation, and like the one above, which I commented on, they all end up with a vicious circle.

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

Is this a serious question? Are you now arguing here as a theist and so have some dualistic concern about bacteria having souls and freewill?

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'? — Querius

If teleological talk frightens you for some reason, you can think of it as simply a way of characterising the imperative to grow and reproduce.

Isn't this contradictory to say that constraints are responsible for freedom? I don't know how that could work — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope. And I've already explained it to you in this thread as in umpteen other threads.

Well, I've seen you attempt to explain your understanding of hierarchical organisation, and like the one above, which I commented on, they all end up with a vicious circle. — Metaphysician Undercover

But as that vicious circle is locked up, biting its own tail, inside the small world of your own imagination, I can't feel unduly worried.

I mean you could read a book about it - Stan Salthe wrote a pair of splendid ones - but I've no evidence you actually put any effort into researching the positions you take.

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'? — Querius

My point was to characterize what it is that natural selection selects for (or against) from the moment of abiogenesis onwards. It selects among processes and bodily structures that already have vital functions (i.e. functions that promote the vital organization and procreation abilities of the organism.) But natural selection remains an enabling force in this story. When mutated heritable vital functions are defective, or relatively inefficient (compared to those of kins and foes) then they are selected away. Organisms strive to survive, under local constraints, since those who don't so strive die off and fail to reproduce. This story just is a fleshing out of the standard Darwinian theory of evolution -- one that frees itself from the unnecessary strictures of reductionism while characterizing the isolated processes and activities.

(See Ruth Garrett Millikan's What is Behavior for similar anti-reductionist points regarding the evolution of behavioral abilities).

We cannot ignore the facts of neurological involvement in the free will act. The question for the metaphysician is the cause of such activity. It seems very clear that the activity of the nervous system is the cause of the activity of the human body. — Metaphysician Undercover

Look, questions about 'neurological involvement' and the nervous system is not metaphysics at all.

If stating facts is begging the question, — Metaphysician Undercover

'Begging the question is 'assuming what is to be proved'. The statement of yours which I said was 'begging the question', was this one:

Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system, perhaps within the brain, — Metaphysician Undercover

But the point that is at issue is whether such an act can be understood on the basis of 'the most minute parts' - that being 'the bottom' - or from the formation of a conscious intention - that being 'the top'. So I said your statement begged the question, because it assumes what it needs to prove, which you're still doing.

Well, I gave an example of the neutron's properties being determined by its being situated in an atom.
— Wayfarer

As I explained, this assumes an unacceptable causal relationship. — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn't 'assume' anything - it's a statement of scientific fact. What we think about it is about as relevant as our opinion on 'what gravity is'.

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. While of course being constrained by the general purposes of the second law, it could also now think its own prime purpose was to flourish and multiply. As a direction in nature, it could point counterfactually away from entropic death and decay and towards negentropic life and growth ... for a time at least. — apokrisis

Note that this is still basically a biological perspective which understand life it terms of underlying thermodynamic and other physical laws.

Note that this is still basically a biological perspective which understand life it terms of underlying thermodynamic and other physical laws. — Wayfarer

Of course. It would have to be otherwise I would be in trouble.

So life|mind is an example of radical emergence ... which is also in a deeper sense just more of the same.

The signal characteristic of bios is that it is negentropic complexity that is thus the precise "other" of entropic simplicity. No one would mistake an organism for a rock. And yet still, on close inspection, negentropy is only possible because it accelerates local entropy production. So it's purpose is completely aligned with the second law and the universal arrow of time. Yet it is also completely different ... when we start describing it in its own apparent terms at its own emergent scale of being.

Now this physicalist understanding of life - as biosemiotic dissipative structure - is completely uncontroversial in theoretical biology circles (at least the ones I choose to circulate in ;) ). And there is no reason not to think it extends also to explain mindfulness as a physicalist phenomenon.

The big challenge for semiotics is instead about heading in the other direction - explaining the Cosmos itself in pan-semiotic terms. That is still a speculative Metaphysical venture, and not yet on the agenda in any open way amongst physicists. Although David Layzer has been pushing the dissipative structure story there for a long time now.

Ok, so you have described a "higher level" of neurological activity, which you say is responsible for the intentional, rational, free will acts. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

To pursue the analogy, the hardware level deals with the implementation and enablement of basic logical functions. But what makes the execution of those basic logical functions logical (or computatonal) at all, and what makes the intended effects (e.g. the screen or printer outputs) results of meaningful computations is their participation in the specific global hardware+sofware architecture.

Since you can identify no efficient cause for this activity, you assign the cause to the "individual as a whole".

That's not the reason why I am looking for something other than an "efficient" cause. 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.

The "efficient" (so called) cause that you are highlighting figures as an answer to a different question: why did this or that piece of meaningless bodily motion occur at the time that it did. If you would also ask in what manner those muscular/neural events are capable of enabling genuinely cognitive function (and intentional behavior) then you would already have left the narrow explanatory space of bottom-up "efficient" causation.

(I put "efficient" between scare quotes since efficient causation was originally an Aristotelian notion quite unlike modern "Humean" (universal law exhibiting) causation. The efficient cause of the existence of the house, according to Aristotle, is the builder -- a substance rather than a process or event.

Now we have some extremely vague notion of, "an individual as a whole" being the cause of this neurological activity.

First, the individual isn't the efficient cause of the neurological activity. It's rather that what global cognitive economy this or that neural event (or neurophysiologcal function) is a part of determines its functional nature (See Davidson on radical interpretation). So, this is a species of formal causation. Second, the notion of the individual as a whole just is the notion of a human being like Joe or Sue. Though the notion of an individual living organism has some inherent vagueness due to questions of persistence and identity criteria, its not any more vague than the notion of a neuron, a mouse, a tea cup or a hydrogen atom.

Why is it that you believe that this vague notion of "an individual as a whole", being the cause of this activity, is a better description than the classical description which holds that the immaterial soul is the cause of this activity?

Because we can improve on the notion of the immaterial soul through reviving Aristotle's notion of the rational soul as the specific form (i.e. the specific functional organization) of the mature and healthy human body.

'Begging the question is 'assuming what is to be proved'. The statement of yours which I said was 'begging the question', was this one: — Wayfarer

What I meant by "clearly", is that evidence indicates this. Even Pierre-Normand admitted this. If you have any evidence to the contrary, then bring it forward.

But the point that is at issue is whether such an act can be understood on the basis of 'the most minute parts' - that being 'the bottom' - or from the formation of a conscious intention - that being 'the top'. So I said your statement begged the question, because it assumes what it needs to prove, which you're still doing. — Wayfarer

I would disagree with you, that conscious intention is "the top". I think it is you who is begging the question by describing conscious intention as "the top". You only do this to support your claim that anything caused by conscious intention is ipso facto "top-down" causation, because according to this assertion there is nothing above conscious intention. I support my claim, which you call "begging the question", with accepted neurological facts. You have the dubious claim that conscious intention is the top. Can you offer any support for this assumption of yours, that conscious intention is the top? In what context is intention the top of anything?

It doesn't 'assume' anything - it's a statement of scientific fact. — Wayfarer

Let me get this straight. You are claiming that the atom is the cause of existence of the relationships which constitute the existence of the atom. So there are particular relations between the protons, the neutrons, and the electrons, and these particular relations are caused by the atom itself? Now you claim that this is a statement of scientific fact. Do you not see how silly this is? I suppose that the relationships between atoms which make up a molecule, are caused by the molecule itself? I learned in science, that it is a chemical reaction which causes these relationships, and the molecule comes into existence as a result of a chemical reaction. Likewise, with respect to the relationships which constitute the existence of an atom, it is a nuclear reaction which causes these relationships, and consequently the existence of the atom. So much for your "scientific" fact. I should rather class it as an "alternative fact", claimed as a fact just to support your untenable position..

You have the dubious claim that conscious intention is the top. Can you offer any support for this assumption of yours, that conscious intention is the top? In what context is intention the top of anything? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's standard neuroscience I would say. Attention acts top down by applying a state of selective constraint across the brain. You can hook an electrode up to a retinal ganglion cell and watch it in action. Or an EEG can record the fact as it happens in general fashion as a suddenly spreading wave of suppression - the P300.

So, as far as neuroscience goes, folk wouldnt talk about it as consciousness (too many unhelpful connotations for the professionals). But top down integrative constraints are how the brain works.

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. To pursue the analogy, the hardware level deals with the implementation and enablement of basic logical function. But what makes the execution of those basic logical function logical (or computatonal) at all, and what makes the resulting effects (e.g. screen or printer outputs) the results of the computations that they are is their participation in the global hardware+sofware functions and architecture. — Pierre-Normand

If we are going to discuss a higher level, and a lower level, then we need to distinguish the two distinct aspects of the free will act. First, we have the impulse to act, and second, we have the will to deliberate. The first inclines us toward action according to instinct reflex, or existing habits. The second is the capacity of the will to decline, or resist this action, we call this "will power". It is this second aspect which makes rational decisions, and conscious deliberations possible. Do you agree that the first is the lower level, and the second is the higher level?

Now if we are to look for the cause of the free act, we must look for the source of activity, and this is to be found in the lower level. The upper level has the capacity to prevent particular activities, diverting energy toward deliberation and rational decision making, instead of making a rash act, but it does not cause activity it directs the activity. So if we are to describe the free will act in terms of bottom-up, or top-down, wouldn't you agree that it is a bottom-up causation, which is influenced by the upper level, which has the capacity to guide the efficient causes in different directions? The true source of activity, is to be found in the lower level.

That's not the reason why I am looking for something other than an "efficient" cause. I am rather looking for a final (intelligible/formal/teological) cause -- something like a goal or reason -- because of the form of the question and the formal nature of the effect: Why did so and so intentionally do what she did. — Pierre-Normand

When we look for the final cause, in the way you describe, we are faced with ideas, as the reason why so and so did such and such. But as I explained to Wayfarer these ideas are passive things, and analyzing passive things will not bring us to the active final cause. The true final cause must be an active cause because it sets in motion the efficient causes necessary to produce the intended end. A passive idea cannot produce efficient causes. This is why, following the Neo-Platonists, we need to proceed to a form of immaterial cause, which is similar to an idea, but is itself active. In this way, intention and final cause become intelligible. But since the final cause is what brings into existence the efficient causes, which proceed to bring about the end, it is necessary to place the final cause at the lowest level, prior to the efficient causes.

It's standard neuroscience I would say. Attention acts top down by applying a state of selective constraint across the brain. You can hook an electrode up to a retinal ganglion cell and watch it in action. Or an EEG can record the fact as it happens in general fashion as a suddenly spreading wave of suppression - the P300.

So, as far as neuroscience goes, folk wouldnt talk about it as consciousness (too many unhelpful connotations for the professionals). But top down integrative constraints are how the brain works. — apokrisis

Yes, I agree with this, read my reply above. The point I made already though, is that this top-down form of constraint is not acting as causation, top-down, it is passive. The free act derives from the bottom and is therefore a bottom-up form of causation, which simply moves upward through the constraints. The constraints may appear to be arranged in a top-down fashion, but since they are passive, there is no real top-down activity here, and this is a misnomer to call it top-down causation, it is just a structure of constraints. If we want to look for the true final cause, the cause of the free act, we must look to the very bottom of the chain of efficient causes, to find a source of activity which is free from efficient causes.

This is what I was arguing in the case of your army analogy in the other thread. What you call "the army", consists of a structure of static constraints. Call them top-down, bottom-up, it doesn't really make any difference at this point, it's a static structure. Now, it is the actions of each individual soldier, through their free willing acts to partake and follow the structure, which causes the existence of the army. The cause of the army is bottom-up, each individual coming in and choosing to do one's part.

You might say that this is a trivial difference, to argue that the constraints are a static structure, and not a true active cause, but it becomes important when we look at beginnings, the coming into being of things. The set of constraints, which exists as "the army", isn't passive in the absolute sense, the army must have come into existence. This is the "construction" which you referred to. These constraints come into existence in a bottom-up fashion, as you described, so they are truly bottom-up constraints, and their top-down appearance is just an illusion.

The point I made already though, is that this top-down form of constraint is not acting as causation, top-down, it is passive. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not passive. Individual neuron firing is actually being suppressed or enhanced.

It's also not purely top-down of course. As I've said often enough, it is the interaction that counts. So you can't really treat selective attention as "a thing" that floats above the action. Instead it is a rapidly evolving balance of activity across the brain - a global act of integration~differentiation.

But critically, it is a wave of purpose forming action. To attend is to be already intending.

And also it is memory and expectation based. So the brain knows how to make sense of the current world because there is this "top-down" weight of prior experience to direct things. And I put top-down in quotes to show I am talking about a hierarchical story where the higher level stuff acts on a larger spatiotemporal scale, so avoids your vicious circularity that comes from thinking a process like attention or consciousness happens "all at once" in a flash.

This is what I was arguing in the case of your army analogy in the other thread. What you call "the army", consists of a structure of static constraints. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope. There is no need for constraints to be considered as passive or static. But certainly - if you follow hierarchy theory - they do play out on a larger spatiotemporal scale. So from the point of view of the soldier, the army is forever the same. But of course the army also changes over sufficient time. It is only ever relatively static or passive.

The cause of the army is bottom-up, each individual coming in and choosing to do one's part. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well this just comes back to your own mystical beliefs about freewill. So I can repeat the same argument and you will avoid it just as swiftly. Anyway, the individual soldier is a soldier because army training has pruned away all the unhelpful civilian freedoms he might have had as a raw recruit. And if the soldier felt he had "freewill", that is one of the first things that boot camp was designed to hammer out of him.

Eventually indoctrination will lead the soldier to learn some narrowed set of habits and so will of course "choose" to behave in military fashion. That will even carry over in civilian life. Everyone knows this.

So there are particular relations between the protons, the neutrons, and the electrons, and these particular relations are caused by the atom itself? Now you claim that this is a statement of scientific fact. Do you not see how silly this is? — Metaphysician Undercover

It isn't silly, nor it it an 'alternative fact', and I would rather not be accused of trading in such. 'A free neutron will decay with a half-life of about 10.3 minutes but it is stable if combined into a nucleus.' That is from the science textbook.

I think it is you who is begging the question by describing conscious intention as "the top". — Metaphysician Undercover

I can see the introduction of 'top-down' has introduced a lot of confusion. Some of those points have been addressed in the posts above. But what this is all about is that 'physical reductionism' is generally 'bottom-up', because it wants to explain such 'higher-level' things as actions, intentions, thoughts, and so on, in terms of the physical and physiological components of the being. So 'bottom-up' thinking, is usually characterised as reductionist, and/or physicalist.

As Pierre Normand explained above, the 'higher level' in 'top-down' isn't a higher level of neurological functionality, but 'a higher functional level of mental organization that relates to the lower level of neurology'.

Generally speaking, Platonist philosophy is 'top-down' (and also anti-naturalist, anti-reductionist, and anti-nominalist.) I'm not saying that to appeal to the authority of Platonism, but to illustrate the kinds of philosophies that are associated with 'top-down' attitudes.

So, generally speaking, materialist philosophies have tended to be 'bottom-up', and idealism has tended to be 'top-down'. Materialist philosophies emphasise the fundamental physical structures, idealism emphasises the mind-like aspects of nature, or the primacy of the intellect, and so on.

So when I said that your 'explanation' begs the question, what I mean is that when you say things such as 'Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system...', you're assuming a point of view that is generally associated with reductionist accounts. But as this is the very point that was being debated, it is this assumption that is begging the question.

If we are going to discuss a higher level, and a lower level, then we need to distinguish the two distinct aspects of the free will act. First, we have the impulse to act, and second, we have the will to deliberate. The first inclines us toward action according to instinct reflex, or existing habits. The second is the capacity of the will to decline, or resist this action, we call this "will power". It is this second aspect which makes rational decisions, and conscious deliberations possible. Do you agree that the first is the lower level, and the second is the higher level? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don't endorse this rather empiricist psychological model. It portrays the rational mind as residing on top -- as a controller/inhibitor -- of antecedent "raw" instincts, drives or impulses. I prefer an account of practical rationality that views the habits and motivations of a mature human being as being largely constitutive of her ability to appraise goals and putative values in point of rationality. What it is reasonable to do in specific circumstances comes to be felt as something that it is desirable to do from the practical epistemic standpoint of someone who has grown to be motivated by the right things and to be sensitive to the morally and/or prudentially salient features of a practical situation.

This is broadly an Aristotelian view of the essential interdependence that holds between phronesis (practical wisdom conceived as a capacity for practical knowledge) and virtue (acquired excellence of character/habit conceived as a set of good motivational dispositions that don't blind individuals to their duties) as described in the ethical and practical-philosophical writings of Elizabeth Anscombe, John McDowell, David Wiggins, Jennifer Hornsby, Philippa Foot, Michael Thompson and Sabina Lovibond, among others.

On that view, desire and rational will operate at the same molar, personal-level, of practical cognition/motivation. The low level consists in the component "cognitive"/neural abilities that merely enable high level (personal-level) cognition to function in the relavant context of embodiment, environment and culture.

I'll comment on the rest of your post separately.

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.

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

What power does the act of perceiving of a bird have over matter such that the cat is able to jump on the bird and catch it? What power does the hunger of the cat has to motivate (and move) the cat to pursuing birds? Is there a philosophical mystery there? Our states of mind (and of consciousness) have among themselves motivational and perceptual states. In the case of rational creatures such as ourselves those states take specific conceptual forms such that they can be expressed linguistically and their conceptual contents can be articulated in episodes of practical and theoretical reasoning.

But this sharp qualitative increase in cognitive power that we exhibit compared with the simpler and more straightforward behavioral engagements that non-rational animals have with their perceived environments need not introduce any new mind-over-matter interaction problems. Our conceptual abilities just are reshaped animal abilities that we acquire though initiation/training into a linguistically mediated culture. This is how we are being "programmed", to get back to the computer analogy.

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.

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.

It's not passive. Individual neuron firing is actually being suppressed or enhanced. — apokrisis

I would be interested to see more information concerning this point, a better description of the purported suppression and enhancement. Is there a chemical process involved? As I see it, neurons are always firing. The issue of top-down vs. bottom-up causation, would question whether all the neurons are attempting to fire all the time, in which top-down causation would be preventing this. Or, are just some of the neurons attempting to fire, because some underlying process is causing some neurons to fire while others are not, in which case it is bottom-up.

So the brain knows how to make sense of the current world because there is this "top-down" weight of prior experience to direct things — apokrisis

As I see it, "this weight" of memory, is just passive matter. The prior experience exists as matter in the brain, and this structure of matter will serve as constraint.

And I put top-down in quotes to show I am talking about a hierarchical story where the higher level stuff acts on a larger spatiotemporal scale, so avoids your vicious circularity that comes from thinking a process like attention or consciousness happens "all at once" in a flash. — apokrisis

With respect to the vicious circle, I think that we both respect the fact that we need to look toward something which is not the brain itself, to avoid the circle. This is where you and I take opposite routes. You proceed toward a larger spatiotemporal scale, and you validate final cause in the second law of thermodynamics. My opinion is that this gives you nothing more than infinite regress. So I go the opposite way, I turn deeper inward, looking toward an inner cause, which is prior to physical existence. I look to the inside of the circle, and find release in the non-spatial realm of the central point, while you turn to the outside, making a bigger circle which eventually gets lost in an infinite vagueness. Our two very distinct directions of approach are actually functions of the way that we apprehend time. I understand time in a way which is completely different from the way that you understand time, and this is why my approach is completely different from yours.

'A free neutron will decay with a half-life of about 10.3 minutes but it is stable if combined into a nucleus.' That is from the science textbook. — Wayfarer

I don't question this. But the thing that maintains the existence of the neutron within the atom is the relations which it has with the other parts of the atom. So the question is, what causes these relations. You claim that the atom causes these relations, top-down, I claim that there is a deeper, underlying process which causes these relations, bottom-up.

What I think, is that turning to top-down causation, is a form of quitting, a refusal to go deeper to determine the true causes. For example, suppose we ask, why do water molecules exist in a liquid state at room temperature. One could answer, "this is the form of water", at certain temps it's solid, at others it's liquid, and at others it's gas. These specific constraints act on the water, in a top-down way, causing the water to be liquid at room temperature. But this is just a form of quitting, because it doesn't produce a deeper inquiry, proceeding to analyze the motions of molecules, and determine the true cause.

That is how I see this top-down way of looking at the atom. You put the parts of the atom in a static, and stable relationship, and claim that it is this form, this particular set of constraints called 'the atom" which acts top-down, and causes the longevity of the neutron. But I think that this is just a quitting, an unwillingness to look at the underlying activities of the parts of the atom, as the true cause of this stable relationship.

I can see the introduction of 'top-down' has introduced a lot of confusion. Some of those points have been addressed in the posts above. But what this is all about is that 'physical reductionism' is generally 'bottom-up', because it wants to explain such 'higher-level' things as actions, intentions, thoughts, and so on, in terms of the physical and physiological components of the being. So 'bottom-up' thinking, is usually characterised as reductionist, and/or physicalist. — Wayfarer

I understand this point. My approach, instead of turning the whole reductionist position upside down, as top-down causation does, is to go beneath the bottom of the reductionist approach. Remember, I am dualist, I assume non-physical existence. Physical existence gives the typical reductionist a set of limitations at the Planck scale. I am not physicalist, and I do not accept these artificial, physical, limitations produced by the limitations of the physicist's theories.

Generally speaking, Platonist philosophy is 'top-down' (and also anti-naturalist, anti-reductionist, and anti-nominalist.) I'm not saying that to appeal to the authority of Platonism, but to illustrate the kinds of philosophies that are associated with 'top-down' attitudes. — Wayfarer

I think that characterising Platonist philosophy as top-down is the result of a misunderstanding of Plato. Modern Platonism, and Platonic Realism portray Plato as a Pythagorean Idealist. In actuality though Plato thoroughly analyzed Pythagorean Idealism, and recognized its weaknesses. When the weaknesses were exposed, Aristotle finalized the refutation. That Plato does not follow these top-down principles, which Pythagorean Idealism does, is evident in his positing of "the good", in The Republic. The good is what makes intelligible objects intelligible, like the sun makes visible objects visible. This means that the good, or in Aristotle's terms, that for the sake of which, or final cause, is something beyond an idea, or intelligible object, as the reason, or cause of intelligibility of such things. It is by making the good an idea, or intelligible object, as is sometimes expressed with "the idea of good" (which is a misinterpretation of Plato's "the good") that final cause is understood as an idea. This is very similar to the position apokrisis takes, it is a Pythagorean position, making final cause, or "good" into an idea, in apo's case, the concept of the second law of thermodynamics.

So when I said that your 'explanation' begs the question, what I mean is that when you say things such as 'Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system...', you're assuming a point of view that is generally associated with reductionist accounts. But as this is the very point that was being debated, it is this assumption that is begging the question. — Wayfarer

The problem is that the reductionist approach is based in good scientific principles of investigation. It makes no sense to dismiss these principles to seek a top-down causation, which from the very start gets lost in vagueness due to the fact that there is no evidence of top-down activity. Where there is no evidence of activity, how would we proceed in seeking a cause? There are constraints which appear as top-down structures, but even the activity which brings these constraints into existence, and changes these structures acts from bottom-up.

So it appears to me, like modern idealism is taking a wrong direction. Instead of turning inward, to find the true source of good, deep within, inherent within, as an immanent within the living being, it has turned outward seeking some transcendent good. The reason for this, I believe, is that we have let go of dualism, seeking the simplicity of monism. Reality though, is that there are two distinct directions, inward, and outward. What we find in the outward direction is distinctly different from what we find in the inward direction, and this is not just a matter of perspective. Looking inward is completely different from looking outward, and these two cannot simply be portrayed as directly opposite to each other. What we see in the inward direction is something radically different from what we see in the outward direction, hence the need for dualism. This is due to the peculiar nature of time, the past is distinctly different from the future, with respect to ontology, existence, they cannot be portrayed as simple opposites. Because of this distinct difference, we cannot let go of dualist principles without rendering reality unintelligible.

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

In a nutshell, information can regulate physicochemical instability. If the physics is delicately poised - what they used to call on the edge of chaos - then an almost immaterial nudge can make the switch between competing states.

This is the biosemiotic basis of life. The fact that this is happening right down at the nanoscale of cellular processes is a recent biophysical discovery. Everything is constantly on the verge of falling apart, so by the same token, only needs the slightest regulatory nudge to reform. Top down informational control of living processes is possible because the physical machinery has critical instability - in complete contrast to the reductionist expectation that bodies must be built from strong and stable materials.

So that is the basic principle - empirically demonstrated.

And then brains are just higher level information generators, supplying the regulatory nudges that manage the critical instabilities that are a muscular body in purposeful interaction with an environment.

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

If you want the modern scientific story, we are talking about semiosis - the ability of rate independent information to regulate rate dependent dynamics. A system of signs (or a model) can act top down to manage a sea of critically unstable physical processes in such a way that organised and meaningful behaviour arises from a mess of potential chaos.

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.

Let me get this straight. You are claiming that the atom is the cause of existence of the relationships which constitute the existence of the atom. So there are particular relations between the protons, the neutrons, and the electrons, and these particular relations are caused by the atom itself? Now you claim that this is a statement of scientific fact. Do you not see how silly this is? I suppose that the relationships between atoms which make up a molecule, are caused by the molecule itself? I learned in science, that it is a chemical reaction which causes these relationships, and the molecule comes into existence as a result of a chemical reaction. Likewise, with respect to the relationships which constitute the existence of an atom, it is a nuclear reaction which causes these relationships, and consequently the existence of the atom. So much for your "scientific" fact. I should rather class it as an "alternative fact", claimed as a fact just to support your untenable position.. — Metaphysician Undercover

>:O >:O >:O fucking hell mate, this was like

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

What you are neglecting is that the "I" here is a socially constructed concept enabled by the learnt semiotic habit of speech. So the top down causality has to be traced back now to human social concepts about autonomously regulated behaviour. In the final analysis, in is not you pulling the strings. You are just responding with the various degrees of freedom formed for you due to your particular cultural upbringing.

So you do have freewill ... or rather society set you up from childhood with the habits of rational self-regulation. You then creatively fill your society's purposes (or you get locked up, or in various ways, physically constrained.

In other words, this semiosis business has multiple levels. There are at least three levels of regulatory code we are talking about here - genetic, neural and linguistic. Each code supports an even richer level of evolving downward constraint over material action.

There are two possibilities here: — Querius

You are ignoring the third possibility that consciousness is just a bad word in that is sounds like it is talking about something substantial, and that is not the right way to think about it. You are presuming something that doesn't warrant presuming, and then getting angry when others point that out.

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.