Switch to: References

Citations of:

11.'Downward Causation'in Hierarchically Organised Biological Systems

In Francisco Jose Ayala & Theodosius Dobzhansky (eds.), Studies in the philosophy of biology: reduction and related problems. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 179 (1974)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Abstractions and Implementations.Russ Abbott - manuscript
    Fundamental to Computer Science is the distinction between abstractions and implementations. When that distinction is applied to various philosophical questions it yields the following conclusions. -/- • EMERGENCE. It isn’t as mysterious as it’s made out to be; the possibility of strong emergence is not a threat to science. -/- • INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HIGHER-LEVEL ENTITIES. Physical interaction among higher-level entities is illusory. Abstract interactions are the source of emergence, new domains of knowledge, and complex systems. -/- • PHYSICS and the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Where to Look for Emergent Properties.Agustín Vicente - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (2):156.
    Recent years have seen renewed interest in the emergence issue. The contemporary debate, in contrast with that of past times, has to do not so much with the mind–body problem as with the relationship between the physical and other domains; mostly with the biological domain. One of the main sources of this renewed interest is the study of complex and, in general, far-from-equilibrium self-preserving systems, which seem to fulfil one of the necessary conditions for an entity to be emergent; namely, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Limitations of Hierarchical Organization.Angela Potochnik & Brian McGill - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (1):120-140.
    The concept of hierarchical organization is commonplace in science. Subatomic particles compose atoms, which compose molecules; cells compose tissues, which compose organs, which compose organisms; etc. Hierarchical organization is particularly prominent in ecology, a field of research explicitly arranged around levels of ecological organization. The concept of levels of organization is also central to a variety of debates in philosophy of science. Yet many difficulties plague the concept of discrete hierarchical levels. In this paper, we show how these difficulties undermine (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   53 citations  
  • Emergence: logical, functional and dynamical. [REVIEW]Sandra D. Mitchell - 2012 - Synthese 185 (2):171-186.
    Philosophical accounts of emergence have been explicated in terms of logical relationships between statements (derivation) or static properties (function and realization). Jaegwon Kim is a modern proponent. A property is emergent if it is not explainable by (or reducible to) the properties of lower level components. This approach, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in scientific explanations of complex systems. The standard philosophical notion of emergence posits the wrong dichotomies, confuses (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   41 citations  
  • Eco-cybernetics: the ecology and cybernetics of missing emergences.Donato Bergandi - 2000 - Kybernetes 29 (7/8):928-942..
    Considers that in ecosystem, landscape and global ecology, an energetics reading of ecological systems is an expression of a cybernetic, systemic and holistic approach. In ecosystem ecology, the Odumian paradigm emphasizes the concept of emergence, but it has not been accompanied by the creation of a method that fully respects the complexity of the objects studied. In landscape ecology, although the emergentist, multi-level, triadic methodology of J.K. Feibleman and D.T. Campbell has gained acceptance, the importance of emergent properties is still (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • A semiotic analysis of the genetic information system.Claus Emmeche - 2006 - Semiotica 2006 (160):1-68.
    Terms loaded with informational connotations are often employed to refer to genes and their dynamics. Indeed, genes are usually perceived by biologists as basically ‘the carriers of hereditary information.’ Nevertheless, a number of researchers consider such talk as inadequate and ‘just metaphorical,’ thus expressing a skepticism about the use of the term ‘information’ and its derivatives in biology as a natural science. First, because the meaning of that term in biology is not as precise as it is, for instance, in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • The basic problem of the theory of levels of reality.Roberto Poli - 2001 - Axiomathes 12 (3-4):261-283.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  • Towards a multi-level approach to the emergence of meaning processes in living systems.João Queiroz & Charbel Niño El-Hani - 2006 - Acta Biotheoretica 54 (3):179-206.
    Any description of the emergence and evolution of different types of meaning processes (semiosis, sensu C.S.Peirce) in living systems must be supported by a theoretical framework which makes it possible to understand the nature and dynamics of such processes. Here we propose that the emergence of semiosis of different kinds can be understood as resulting from fundamental interactions in a triadically-organized hierarchical process. To grasp these interactions, we develop a model grounded on Stanley Salthe's hierarchical structuralism. This model can be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Three obstructions: Forms of causation, chronotopoids, and levels of reality.Roberto Poli - 2007 - Axiomathes 17 (1):1-18.
    The thesis is defended that the theories of causation, time and space, and levels of reality are mutually interrelated in such a way that the difficulties internal to theories of causation and to theories of space and time can be understood better, and perhaps dealt with, in the categorial context furnished by the theory of the levels of reality. The structural condition for this development to be possible is that the first two theories be opportunely generalized.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Radical embodiment: Neural dynamics and consciousness.Evan Thompson & Francisco J. Varela - 2001 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (10):418-425.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   241 citations  
  • What to say to a skeptical metaphysician: A defense manual for cognitive and behavioral scientists.Don Ross & David Spurrett - 2004 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (5):603-627.
    A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and that, to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Darwin's legacy. [REVIEW]Nathalie Gontier - 2010 - Theory in Biosciences 63.
    The year 2009 has been a year of numerous commemorations of both scientific and non-scientific achievements that contributed to the advancement of human kind. Protestants celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth of Calvin; literary critics celebrated the 200th anniversary of the poet Edgar Allan Poe; and the musical genius Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was also born 200 years ago. 2009 further marked the bicentennial of the birth of Louis Braille, the inventor of Braille; and Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Emergent Will.Jan Scheffel - manuscript
    The enduring problem of free will has defied resolution across centuries. There is reason to believe that novel factors must be integrated into the analysis to make progress. Within the current physicalist framework, these factors encompass emergence and information theory, in the context of constraints imposed by physical limits on the representation of information. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as 'being able to act differently' is rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for formal analysis. It is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Becoming a Self: The past, present and future of selfhood.David L. Thompson - forthcoming - Altona, MB, Canada: FriesenPress.
    What makes us persons? Is it our bodies, our minds, or our consciousness? For centuries, philosophers have sought to answer these questions. While some believe humans are physical or biological, others claim we have an immaterial soul. This book proposes a new alternative. Selves were formed in evolution through connections and commitments to others when early hominins lived in tribal groups and developed languages. As humans learned to fulfill these commitments, they not only cultivated relationships but also created their personal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Gender.Holly Lawford-Smith & Michael Hauskeller - 2022 - In Michael Hauskeller (ed.), The Things That Really Matter: Philosophical Conversations on the Cornerstones of Life. UCL Press. pp. 65-83.
    We often talk and behave as if being a man required more than just being male, and being a woman required more than just being female. There are expectations that need to be met if someone wants to fully qualify as a man or a woman in their social environment, expectations regarding their behaviour as well as character. It is, however, not entirely obvious what ‘being a man’ or ‘being a woman’ actually means and in what way and to what (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Biosemiotics and Applied Evolutionary Epistemology: A Comparison.Nathalie Gontier & M. Facoetti - 2021 - In Nathalie Gontier & M. Facoetti (eds.), In: Pagni E., Theisen Simanke R. (eds) Biosemiotics and Evolution. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 6. Springer, Cham. Cham: pp. 175-199.
    Both biosemiotics and evolutionary epistemology are concerned with how knowledge evolves. (Applied) Evolutionary Epistemology thereby focuses on identifying the units, levels, and mechanisms or processes that underlie the evolutionary development of knowing and knowledge, while biosemiotics places emphasis on the study of how signs underlie the development of meaning. We compare the two schools of thought and analyze how in delineating their research program, biosemiotics runs into several problems that are overcome by evolutionary epistemologists. For one, by emphasizing signs, biosemiotics (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Evolutionary Epistemology: Two Research Avenues, Three Schools, and A Single and Shared Agenda.Nathalie Gontier & Michael Bradie - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 52 (2):197-209.
    This special issue for the Journal for General Philosophy of Science is devoted to exploring the impact and many ramifications of current research in evolutionary epistemology. Evolutionary epistemology is an inter- and multidisciplinary area of research that can be divided into two ever-inclusive research avenues. One research avenue expands on the EEM program and investigates the epistemology of evolution. The other research avenue builds on the EET program and researches the evolution of epistemology. Since its conception, EE has developed three (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Hierarchies, Networks, and Causality: The Applied Evolutionary Epistemological Approach.Nathalie Gontier - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 52 (2):313-334.
    Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates theorizing (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • The Plurality of Evolutionary Worldviews.Nathalie Gontier - 2021 - Biosemiotics 14 (1):35-40.
    Evolutionary biologists, evolutionary epistemologists, and biosemioticians have demonstrated that organisms not merely adapt to an external world, but that they actively construct their environmental, sociocultural, and cognitive niches. Denis Noble demonstrates that such is no different for those organisms that engage in science, and he lays bare several crucial assumptions that define the scientific dogmas and practices of evolutionary biology.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Entanglement, Symmetry Breaking and Collapse: Correspondences Between Quantum and Self-Organizing Dynamics.Francis Heylighen - 2021 - Foundations of Science 28 (1):85-107.
    Quantum phenomena are notoriously difficult to grasp. The present paper first reviews the most important quantum concepts in a non-technical manner: superposition, uncertainty, collapse of the wave function, entanglement and non-locality. It then tries to clarify these concepts by examining their analogues in complex, self-organizing systems. These include bifurcations, attractors, emergent constraints, order parameters and non-local correlations. They are illustrated with concrete examples that include Rayleigh–Bénard convection, social self-organization and Gestalt perception of ambiguous figures. In both cases, quantum and self-organizing, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level.Anton Sukhoverkhov & Nathalie Gontier - 2021 - Biosystems 1 (200):104325.
    The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • What are the levels and mechanisms/processes of language evolution?Nathalie Gontier - 2017 - Language Sciences 1 (63):12-43.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Emergence in Solid State Physics and Biology.George F. R. Ellis - 2020 - Foundations of Physics 50 (10):1098-1139.
    There has been much controversy over weak and strong emergence in physics and biology. As pointed out by Phil Anderson in many papers, the existence of broken symmetries is the key to emergence of properties in much of solid state physics. By carefully distinguishing between different types of symmetry breaking and tracing the relation between broken symmetries at micro and macro scales, I demonstrate that the emergence of the properties of semiconductors is a case of strong emergence. This is due (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • (1 other version)The Levels of Scientific Disciplines.Samuel Elgin - manuscript
    It is the aim of this paper to develop and defend an interpretation of level of scientific discipline within the truth-maker framework. In particular, I exploit the mereological relation of proper parthood, which is integral to truth-maker semantics, in order to provide an account of scientific level.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Free Will of an Ontologically Open Mind.Jan Scheffel - manuscript
    The problem of free will has persistently resisted a solution throughout centuries. There is reason to believe that new elements need to be introduced into the analysis in order to make progress. In the present physicalist approach, these elements are emergence and information theory in relation to universal limits set by quantum physics. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as "being able to act differently" is, in the spirit of Carnap, rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (6 other versions)Quaderns de filosofia VI, 1.Quad Fia - 2019 - Quaderns de Filosofia 6 (1).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A metaphysical approach to holobiont individuality: Holobionts as emergent individuals.Javier Suárez & Vanessa Triviño - 2019 - Quaderns de Filosofia 6 (1):59-76.
    Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a host plus its microbiome. The status of holobionts as individuals has recently been a subject of continuous controversy, which has given rise to two main positions: on the one hand, holobiont advocates argue that holobionts are biological individuals; on the other, holobiont detractors argue that they are just mere chimeras or ecological communities, but not individuals. Both parties in the dispute develop their arguments from the framework of the philosophy of biology, in terms (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts.Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda & Francisco Vergara-Silva - 2018 - Evolutionary Biology 45 (2):127-139.
    Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Levels of Organization in Biology.Markus Eronen & Daniel Stephen Brooks - unknown - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Levels of organization are structures in nature, usually defined by part-whole relationships, with things at higher levels being composed of things at the next lower level. Typical levels of organization that one finds in the literature include the atomic, molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, organismal, group, population, community, ecosystem, landscape, and biosphere levels. References to levels of organization and related hierarchical depictions of nature are prominent in the life sciences and their philosophical study, and appear not only in introductory textbooks and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Why think that the brain is not a computer?Marcin Miłkowski - 2016 - APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers 16 (2):22-28.
    In this paper, I review the objections against the claim that brains are computers, or, to be precise, information-processing mechanisms. By showing that practically all the popular objections are either based on uncharitable interpretation of the claim, or simply wrong, I argue that the claim is likely to be true, relevant to contemporary cognitive (neuro)science, and non-trivial.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Why some Apes became Humans, Competition, consciousness, and culture.Pouwel Slurink - 2002 - Dissertation, Radboud University
    Chapter 1 (To know in order to survive) & Chapter 2 (A critique of evolved reason) explain human knowledge and its limits from an evolutionary point of view. Chapter 3 (Captured in our Cockpits) explains the evolution of consciousness, using value driven decision theory. Chapter 4-6 (Chapter 4 Sociobiology, Chapter 5 Culture: the Human Arena), Chapter 6, Genes, Memes, and the Environment) show that to understand culture you have at least to deal with 4 levels: genes, brains, the environment, culture. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • In Defense of Levels: Layer Cakes and Guilt by Association.Daniel S. Brooks - 2017 - Biological Theory 12 (3).
    Despite the ubiquity of “levels of organization” in the scientific literature, a nascent “levels skepticism” now claims that the concept of levels is an inherently flawed, misleading, or otherwise inadequate notion for understanding how life scientists produce knowledge about the natural world. However, levels skeptics rely on the maligned “layer-cake” account of levels stemming from Oppenheim and Putnam’s defense of the unity of science for their critical commentary. Recourse to layer-cake levels is understandable, as it is arguably the default conception (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • What are the Units of Language Evolution?Nathalie Gontier - 2018 - Topoi 37 (2):235-253.
    Universal Darwinism provides a methodology to study the evolution of anatomical form and sociocultural behavior that centers on defining the units and levels of selection, and it identifies the conditions whereby natural selection operates. In previous work, I have examined how this selection-focused evolutionary epistemology may be universalized to include theories that associate with an extended synthesis. Applied evolutionary epistemology is a metatheoretical framework that understands any and all kinds of evolution as phenomena where units evolve by mechanisms at levels (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Roads to Consciousness: Crucial steps in mental development.Uwe Saint-Mont - unknown
    For a long time, philosophers have considered the conundrums of consciousness, self-awareness and free will. Much more recently, scientists have joined in and begun to unravel the secrets of mind. Biologists, physicians and psychologists, studying the human brain, but also physicists, engineers, and computer scientists, working on organizational principles of intelligent information processing systems, have contributed to the subject. This contribution explains several “roads to self-awareness”, all of them based on the natural sciences. The first one follows our bio-psychological evolution. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Colloquium 1: Aristotle’s Metaphysics as the Ontology of Being-Alive and its Relevance Today.Alfred Miller - 2005 - Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 20 (1):1-107.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (1 other version)From Group Selection to Ecological Niches.Jack Birner - 2009 - In Zuzana Parusniková & Robert S. Cohen (eds.), Rethinking Popper. London: Springer. pp. 185--202.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • A conceptual linkage between cognitive architectures and social interaction.Kees Zoethout & Wander Jager - 2009 - Semiotica 2009 (175):317-333.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Emergence, Closure and Inter-level Causation in Biological Systems.Matteo Mossio, Leonardo Bich & Alvaro Moreno - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (2):153-178.
    In this paper, we advocate the idea that an adequate explanation of biological systems requires appealing to organizational closure as an emergent causal regime. We first develop a theoretical justification of emergence in terms of relatedness, by arguing that configurations, because of the relatedness among their constituents, possess ontologically irreducible properties, providing them with distinctive causal powers. We then focus on those emergent causal powers exerted as constraints, and we claim that biological systems crucially differ from other natural systems in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  • Concluding reflection.Arthur Peacocke - 1991 - Zygon 26 (4):527-540.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Selection of organization at the social level: Obstacles and facilitators of metasystem transitions.Francis Heylighen & Donald Campbell - 1995 - World Futures 45 (1):181-212.
    (1995). Selection of organization at the social level: Obstacles and facilitators of metasystem transitions. World Futures: Vol. 45, The Quantum of Evolution, pp. 181-212.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Holism and Reductionism in Biology and Ecology the Mutual Dependence of Higher and Lower Level Research Programmes.Rick C. Looijen - 2000 - Springer.
    Holism and reductionism are usually seen as opposite and mutually exclusive approaches to nature. Recently, some have come to see them as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. In this book I have argued that, even stronger, they should be seen as mutually dependent and co-operating research programmes. I have discussed holism and reductionism in biology in general and in ecology in particular. After an introductory chapter I have provided an overview of holistic and reductionistic positions in biology, and of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Looking down, around, and up: Mechanistic explanation in psychology.William Bechtel - 2009 - Philosophical Psychology 22 (5):543-564.
    Accounts of mechanistic explanation have emphasized the importance of looking down—decomposing a mechanism into its parts and operations. Using research on visual processing as an exemplar, I illustrate how productive such research has been. But once multiple components of a mechanism have been identified, researchers also need to figure out how it is organized—they must look around and determine how to recompose the mechanism. Although researchers often begin by trying to recompose the mechanism in terms of sequential operations, they frequently (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   72 citations  
  • Complexity and philosophy.Francis Heylighen, Paul Cilliers & Carlos Gershenson - 2006 - In Francis Heylighen, Paul Cilliers & Carlos Gershenson (eds.), [Book Chapter] (in Press).
    The science of complexity is based on a new way of thinking that stands in sharp contrast to the philosophy underlying Newtonian science, which is based on reductionism, determinism, and objective knowledge. This paper reviews the historical development of this new world view, focusing on its philosophical foundations. Determinism was challenged by quantum mechanics and chaos theory. Systems theory replaced reductionism by a scientifically based holism. Cybernetics and postmodern social science showed that knowledge is intrinsically subjective. These developments are being (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Living things as hierarchically organized structures.Uko Zylstra - 1992 - Synthese 91 (1-2):111 - 133.
    Hierarchical organization is an essential characteristic of living things. Although most biologists affirm the concept of living things as hierarchically organized structures, there are widespread differences of interpretation in the meaning of hierarchy and of how the concept of hierarchy applies to living things. One such basic difference involves the distinction between the concept of control hierarchy and classification hierarchy. It is suggested that control hierarchies are distinguished from classification hierarchies in that while the former involve authority relationships between levels, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Van rooijen and Mayr versus Popper: Is the universe causally closed?Tom Settle - 1989 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40 (3):389-403.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Zooming in on downward causation.William S. Robinson - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (1):117-136.
    . An attempt is made to identify a concept of ‘downward causation’ that will fit the claims of some recent writers and apply to interesting cases in biology and cognitive theory, but not to trivial cases. After noting some difficulties in achieving this task, it is proposed that in interesting cases commonly used to illustrate ‘downward causation’, (a) regularities hold between multiply realizable properties and (b) the explanation of the parallel regularity at the level of the realizing properties is non-trivial. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Physical Time and Human Time.George F. R. Ellis - 2023 - Foundations of Physics 54 (1):1-17.
    This paper is a comment on both Bunamano and Rovelli (Bridging the neuroscience and physics of time arXiv:2110.01976. (2022)) and Gruber et al. (in Front. Psychol. Hypothesis Theory, 2022) and which discuss the relation between physical time and human time. I claim here, contrary to many views discussed there, that there is no foundational conflict between the way physics views the passage of time and the way the mind/brain perceives it. The problem rather resides in a number of misconceptions leading (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Process-based entities are relational structures. From Whitehead to structuralism.Francesco Maria Ferrari - 2021 - Manuscrito: Revista Internacional de Filosofía 1 (44):149-207.
    The aim of this work is to argue for the idea that processes and process-based entities are to be modelled as relational structures. Relational structures are genuine structures, namely entities not committed to the existence of basic objects. My argument moves from the analysis of Whitehead’s original insight about process-based entities that, despite some residual of substance metaphysics, has the merit of grounding the intrinsic dynamism of reality on the holistic and relational characters of process-based entities. The current model of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • The evolution of (proto-)language: Focus on mechanisms.Przemyslaw Zywickzinski, Nathalie Gontier & Slawomir Wacewicz - 2017 - Language Science 63 (63):1-11.
    This article introduces a special issue on mechanisms in language evolution research. It describes processes relevant for the emergence of protolanguage and the transition thereof to modern language. Protolanguage is one of the key terms in the field of language evolution, used to designate a hypothesised intermediate stage in the emergence of language present in extinct hominins: qualitatively different from non-human primate communication in possessing some, but not all, of the features that characterise modern language. Much debate in language evolution (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Conservation, Creation, and Evolution: Revising the Darwinian Project.Gennady Shkliarevsky - 2019 - Journal of Evolutionary Science 1 (2):1-30.
    There is hardly anything more central to our universe than conservation. Many scientific fields and disciplines view the law of conservation as one of the most fundamental universal laws. The Darwinian model pivots the process of evolution on variability, reproduction, and natural selection. Conservation plays a marginal role in this model and is not really universal, as the model allows exceptions to conservation, i.e. non-conservation, to play an equally important role in evolution. This anomalous role of conservation in the Darwinian (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark