Towards the end of her famous 1971 paper “Causality and Determination”, Elizabeth Anscombe discusses the controversial idea that “ ‘physical haphazard’ could be the only physical correlate of human freedom of action”. In order to illustrate how the high-level freedom of human action can go together with micro-indeterminism without creating a problem for micro-statistics, she provides the analogy of a glass box filled with minute coloured particles whose micro-dynamics is subject to statistical laws, while its outside reliably displays a recognisable (...) variation of a certain image created by an external cause. Anscombe’s example is somewhat enigmatic, and she provides no details to support its viability. In this paper we discuss the context of Anscombe’s analogy, and we provide basics of the theory and practice of building an Anscombe box. (shrink)

The causal closure of physics is usually discussed in a context free way. Here I discuss it in the context of engineering systems and biology, where strong emergence takes place due to a combination of upwards emergence and downwards causation. Firstly, I show that causal closure is strictly limited in terms of spatial interactions because these are cases that are of necessity strongly interacting with the environment. Effective Spatial Closure holds ceteris parabus, and can be violated by Black Swan Events. (...) Secondly, I show that causal closure in the hierarchy of emergence is a strictly interlevel affair, and in the cases of engineering and biology encompasses all levels from the social level to the particle physics level. However Effective Causal Closure can usefully be defined for a restricted set of levels, and one can experimentally determine Effective Theories that hold at each level. This does not however imply those effective theories are causally complete by themselves. In particular, the particle physics level is not causally complete by itself in the contexts of solid state physics, digital computers, or biology. Furthermore Inextricably Intertwined Levels occur in all these contexts. (shrink)

A notion of delegated causality is introduced here. This subtle kind of causality is dual to interventional causality. Delegated causality elucidates the causal role of dynamical systems at the “edge of chaos”, explicates evident cases of downward causation, and relates emergent phenomena to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. Apparently rich implications are noticed in biology and Chinese philosophy. The perspective of delegated causality supports cognitive interpretations of self-organization and evolution.

Emergence is a notorious philosophical term of art. A variety of theorists have appropriated it for their purposes ever since George Henry Lewes gave it a philosophical sense in his 1875 Problems of Life and Mind. We might roughly characterize the shared meaning thus: emergent entities (properties or substances) ‘arise’ out of more fundamental entities and yet are ‘novel’ or ‘irreducible’ with respect to them. (For example, it is sometimes said that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.) Each (...) of the quoted terms is slippery in its own right, and their specifications yield the varied notions of emergence that we discuss below. There has been renewed interest in emergence within discussions of the behavior of complex systems and debates over the reconcilability of mental causation, intentionality, or consciousness with physicalism. (shrink)

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millenia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very (...) closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love and friendship. (See Kane 1996, 81ff. and Clarke 2003, Ch.1.). (shrink)

In this paper, we demonstrate (1) how harnessing stochasticity can be the basis of creative agency; (2) that such harnessing can resolve the apparent conflict between reductionist (micro-level) accounts of behaviour and behaviour as the outcome of rational and value-driven (macro-level) decisions; (3) how neurophysiological processes can instantiate such behaviour; (4) The processes involved depend on three features of living organisms: (a) they are necessarily open systems; (b) micro-level systems therefore nest within higher-level systems; (c) causal interactions must occur across (...) all the boundaries between the levels of organization. The higher levels constrain the dynamics of lower levels. The experimental evidence and theoretical arguments are shown to be consistent with previous research on the neuronal mechanisms of conscious choice, and with the interconnected multi-level processes by which organisms harness stochasticity, whether conscious or unconscious. (shrink)

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 (...) to the existence of quasiparticles such as phonons. Furthermore time dependent potentials enable downward causation as in the case of digital computers. Additionally I show that the processes of evolutionary emergence of living systems is also a case of strong emergence, as is the emergence of properties of life out of the underlying physics. A useful result emerges: standard physics theories and the emergent theories arising out of them are all effective theories that are equally valid. (shrink)

Contextual emergence was originally proposed as an inter-level relation between different levels of description to describe an epistemic notion of emergence in physics. Here, we discuss the ontic extension of this relation to different domains or levels of physical reality using the properties of temperature and molecular shape as detailed case studies. We emphasize the concepts of stability conditions and multiple realizability as key features of contextual emergence. Some broader implications contextual emergence has for the foundations of physics and cognitive (...) and neural sciences are given in the concluding discussion. Relevant facts about algebras of observables are found in the appendices along with an abstract definition of Kubo-Martin-Schwinger states. (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) stands out as one of the most promising theories for dealing with the hard problem of consciousness. Founded on five axioms derived from phenomenology, IIT seeks for the physical substrate of consciousness that complies with such axioms according to the criterion of maximally integrated information (Φ). Eventually, IIT identifies phenomenal consciousness with maximal Φ or, what is the same thing, with the strongest cause-effect power in the system. Among the scholars critical of this theory, some point (...) to the so-called Intrinsicality Problem (IP), namely that consciousness cannot be an intrinsic property of the system because maximal Φ crucially depends on the possible existence of bigger values of Φ if the initial system is appropriately linked to or embedded in larger systems. Although proposals in the recent literature aim to solve the IP by going beyond reductionism and physicalism, none of them tackle the real issue, i.e., the insufficiency of IIT’s causal-metaphysical structure. This papers endeavors to provide a solution to the IP in IIT within a hylomorphist ontology that includes formal causation. Complementing IIT with formal causation provides the theory with a criterion of individuation that solves the IP and, by relaxing identification between maximal Φ and consciousness, it lends a more robust metaphysical structure. To wit, maximal Φ is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness. (shrink)

Dans ce livre très original, Markus Gabriel avance une théorie du soi humain qui surmonte les blocages inhérents aux positions standards en philosophie de l’esprit contemporaine. Son point de vue, le néo-existentialisme, est intégralement antinaturaliste, en ce sens qu’il rejette toute théorie selon laquelle l’ensemble de nos meilleures connaissances scientifiques naturelles serait pleinement capable de rendre compte de l’esprit humain. L’auteur montre plutôt que l’esprit humain consiste en une prolifération ouverte de vocabulaires mentalistes. Leur rôle dans la forme de vie (...) humaine consiste à rendre compte du fait que l’être humain ne se fond pas simplement dans la nature inanimée et le reste du règne animal. Les humains s’appuient sur un autoportrait qui les situe dans un contexte aussi large que possible au sein de l’univers. Ce qui distingue cet autoportrait de notre connaissance de la réalité naturelle, c’est que nous changeons en vertu de nos croyances, vraies ou fausses, au sujet de nous-mêmes. (shrink)