Top-down organization

[Christopher]

It seems easiest to think of the universe from a bottom-up perspective, taking fundamental particles and building into higher and higher systems. If we were to start at quarks, we would move to electrons/protons/neutrons to atoms to molecules. Exhausting the physical system, we would move to biology, to cells and tissue and organs with neurons and brain stem and cortex. Exhausting the biological system, we might begin to move into psychological systems starting with impulses and identification and concepts and integrated concepts.

Each system is dependent upon the lesser systems and therefore it seems causally originated from the lower system. I wonder if that's true.

Since lesser systems are subsystems of higher systems, I wonder whether we can successfully conceptualize and acknowledge through logic the possibility that higher systems give rise to subsystems. I wonder whether we can say the highest system, which includes all other subsystems as components of itself, is the ultimate foundation for all lesser systems.

I think an equally interesting line in inquiry is to consider how lesser systems are organized according to the rules of the higher subsystems. For example, molecules in a biological system are not organized by laws of physics per se, these molecules are organized by the laws of biology, by the requirements for biological life that then places those molecules into specific patterns and places so-as to effect the biological system. In other words, what would appear as random to physics is highly organized to biology. How much of the universe that we perceive and understand is organized by systems we have yet to comprehend?

Christopher

[syrakusos]

I wonder whether we can say the highest system, which includes all other subsystems as components of itself, is the ultimate foundation for all lesser systems. ... In other words, what would appear as random to physics is highly organized to biology. How much of the universe that we perceive and understand is organized by systems we have yet to comprehend?

Christopher

I can accept that. God came first and all the subsystems were created by God. Makes perfect sense. (Well, except for one thing....)

For me, the most profound moment in Carl Sagan's Contact was when Ellie asks the extraterrestrial guide about the wormhole transport and he says, "We didn't build it. We found it here when we arrived." The Universe did not have a Creator, but given the Universe, whatever else exists besides us must be wonderful.

Top-down design. I like that.

Thanks!

Mike M.

[Leonid]

It seems easiest to think of the universe from a bottom-up perspective, taking fundamental particles and building into higher and higher systems. If we were to start at quarks, we would move to electrons/protons/neutrons to atoms to molecules. Exhausting the physical system, we would move to biology, to cells and tissue and organs with neurons and brain stem and cortex. Exhausting the biological system, we might begin to move into psychological systems starting with impulses and identification and concepts and integrated concepts.

Each system is dependent upon the lesser systems and therefore it seems causally originated from the lower system. I wonder if that's true.

Since lesser systems are subsystems of higher systems, I wonder whether we can successfully conceptualize and acknowledge through logic the possibility that higher systems give rise to subsystems. I wonder whether we can say the highest system, which includes all other subsystems as components of itself, is the ultimate foundation for all lesser systems.

I think an equally interesting line in inquiry is to consider how lesser systems are organized according to the rules of the higher subsystems. For example, molecules in a biological system are not organized by laws of physics per se, these molecules are organized by the laws of biology, by the requirements for biological life that then places those molecules into specific patterns and places so-as to effect the biological system. In other words, what would appear as random to physics is highly organized to biology. How much of the universe that we perceive and understand is organized by systems we have yet to comprehend?

Christopher

Edited January 11, 2010 by Leonid

[Leonid]

It seems like you actually present the question of explanatory gap. My answer in short would be: each and every system has emergent properties as result of self-organization of its subsystems. "Few doubt that the self-organization of matter generates much of the complexity of the inorganic world, from molecules to galaxies (Haken 1977; Yates et al. 1987; Bak 1996; Ball 1999; Lehn 2002).In their book "Biological Self-organization" Camazine et al. (2001: 8) define self organization as "a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower level components of the system. Moreover the rules specifying interactions among the system’s components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern. In short pattern is an emergent property of the system rather than being imposed on the system by an external ordering influence." Such a property's identity differs from the properties of its subsystems and therefore has different causality. So biological systems act in accordance with the law of biology which exludes efficient causation.

[Christopher]

If I understand you correctly, you are asserting that subsytems combine to creat macro-processes that are greater than sum of the individual subcomponents and cannot be encapsulated by the sum of such components. If this is our assertion, I agree with it.

I have since thought and read about this holistic view more. I definitely believe there is an hierarchical separation between systems such that, for example, biology cannot be meaningfully explained using physics, nor can psychology be meaningfully explained using biology. Higher-order processes have their own rules, which makes me wonder whether living systems are the only systems that can emerge and continue to emerge "up the ladder" so to speak. Why? Because it appears that system emergence can only produce new considerations about reality relative to the system's existence itself. To my knowledge, the only meaningful considerations relative to an emergent system must be in pursuit of sustaining the system (else the system would be expected to collapse). In other words, the only new meaning/information that has been added to the universe is from the emergent system itself, and therefore the only new meaning the system can generate in the universe is meaning relative to the system's existence.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I still have great difficulty attributing the causality of the existence of all structures solely to the nature of subparticles, especially when they are the same for everything.

Just because forms and structures can emerge from the bottom up, that doesn't mean that this is the only element in the universe causing it.

I don't have an answer to total causation, but I do have unanswered questions...

Emergence as sole cause or creative process doesn't answer them.

The closest I have come is to say that top and bottom exist as metaphysical starting points, not that the bottom is the only thing causing tops.

I can't conceive of a bottom without a top, anyway...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Apropos,

Here's a real top-down question.

Does gravity "emerge" from subparticles?

Michael

[Christopher]

Gravity comes from God, I thought everybody knew that!

The question is: was the emergence path previously laid out by a backward fall (such as described by Buddhism, etc), is emergence happening just because, or is there another energy in the universe that draws systems upward?

Here's an interesting thought: The Big-Bang-repeat theory does not follow the 2nd(?) law of thermodynamics that the universe is always moving towards entropy. Organization started from somewhere. Right now the only force I know of that organizes matter is life. So was the universe alive, then it died and we have all this haphazard chaos from which we ourselves are arising? Or perhaps if the gravity-well that theoretically resulted in The Big Bang is true, then gravity and God (life) are one.

[Dragonfly]

Does gravity "emerge" from subparticles?

Gravity is a property of all particles with mass > 0. It is a very weak force, but when there are very many particles (as in celestial bodies) the force becomes quite significant.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I still have great difficulty attributing the causality of the existence of all structures solely to the nature of subparticles, especially when they are the same for everything.

Just because forms and structures can emerge from the bottom up, that doesn't mean that this is the only element in the universe causing it.

I don't have an answer to total causation, but I do have unanswered questions...

Emergence as sole cause or creative process doesn't answer them.

The closest I have come is to say that top and bottom exist as metaphysical starting points, not that the bottom is the only thing causing tops.

I can't conceive of a bottom without a top, anyway...

Michael

Michael,

The bottom is emergent too and it can never be fully separated from the top. Subatomic particles only exist in their current form because the universe or our part of it anyway is in a certain energy density regime. The subatomic particles and forces are the only way to mediate actions on the lower level. The first upper level causality that scientists are concerned with is valence electrons in an atomic structure. Due to quantum behavior, electrons can only exist in certain discrete energy states. The dynamics of causality, even at this low level (or perhaps especially) are irreducible. Chemical properties depend mostly on the energy states of electrons themselves in their valence shell and interrelatedness to other electrons.

In a fundamental way there is no bottom in the Laplacian sense of wanting irreducible constituents whose behavior can be summed up in an orderly way to predict higher level events. Science is interesting and irreducible at many levels of organization. We can study science as a combination of deterministic and chaotic or indeterministic systems at every level of organization.

The thing that is special about life is the simultaneous existence of replication and metabolism that allow living systems to store information. DNA is a mostly deterministic system, but one that has just a teensy bit of an error rate that allows evolution.

I'm always amused at the pretzels many Objectivists tie themselves into because they want perfect certainty (in principle if human fallibility didn't exist) and free will at the same time. Free will exists tethered to brain system and evolutionary influence, but perfect certainty doesn't and can't exist not even in principle. Scientists will always use error bars.

Jim

Edited January 12, 2010 by James Heaps-Nelson

[Dragonfly]

Here's an interesting thought: The Big-Bang-repeat theory does not follow the 2nd(?) law of thermodynamics that the universe is always moving towards entropy.

"Moving towards entropy" is nonsense, perhaps you mean "moving towards maximal entropy". The larger the universe becomes, the larger the total maximum entropy becomes, so the notion of an expanding universe is certainly not contrary to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Further this law does not exclude the possibility that locally entropy will decrease, as long as the total entropy will increase. That's the dumb error that creationists make when they state that human beings violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. As long as they are not closed systems, but systems in interaction with their environment (like getting energy from the sun, directly or indirectly) their entropy may decrease. You don't have to look at life for such examples: a simple example is the forming of snow crystals, which have a lower entropy than a corresponding amount of water vapour, but that doesn't mean that they violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

[Christopher]

More seriously...

Michael, you're writing a rather (understandably) cryptic idea of your thoughts.

We all know that emergence is true, that according to our knowledge chronologically psychology emerged from biology emerged from physical matter. And you're right to suggest that bottom-up is perhaps not the primary causal agent in systems evolution.

As Jim is mentioning, we also deal with a duality in terms of volition and determinism, specifically the two universes of awareness and matter. I think the best we can argue is that there are a set of forces linked with matter (as a bottom level) and a set of forces linked with awareness (as a top level). These two sets of forces essentially make up the entirety of the metaphysical universe, and it is their interplay that leads to emergence. This would fit neatly in with my recent previous assertion that all emergence necessarily arises through living systems.

Christopher

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The bottom is emergent too and it can never be fully separated from the top. Subatomic particles only exist in their current form because the universe or our part of it anyway is in a certain energy density regime.

Jim,

This is as I think.

Both the subparticles and the regime exist. We cannot discuss one without implying the other. That's why it sounds offkey to me when I read claims that one causes the other.

btw - That goes both ways. I find the position that subparticles create all that exists just as unsatisfying as God created all that exists.

We all know that emergence is true, that according to our knowledge chronologically psychology emerged from biology emerged from physical matter. And you're right to suggest that bottom-up is perhaps not the primary causal agent in systems evolution.

Christopher,

I agree with this.

As to the rest, I really can't say.

I'm a bit skeptical about establishing a causality for emergence. My gut tells me that it just is, like subparticles are, like form is, like other elements of the universe are.

They are all like different facets of the same gemstone to me. You can isolate a facet to observe it and discuss it, but you cannot remove it from a gemstone as if it were a separate thing. And it would be silly to say that one facet is the cause of another, or that it is the cause of the gemstone.

I see one universe with a butt-load of different stuff going on down here.

btw - From what I have seen so far, the big bang is nothing more than a mathematical projection. We observe the expansion of the universe and presume that it always was this way. Thus we can project going backward. But making suppositions based on a projected (not observable) timeline is about as far as it goes. Since there is no observation in a backward time direction, we ultimately cannot verify this. We can only speculate.

And it gets really weird if you postulate an existence without time as I have seen postulated in scientific discussions. In that case, how do you go backward if something doesn't even exist going forward?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Here's an interesting thought: The Big-Bang-repeat theory does not follow the 2nd(?) law of thermodynamics that the universe is always moving towards entropy.

"Moving towards entropy" is nonsense, perhaps you mean "moving towards maximal entropy". The larger the universe becomes, the larger the total maximum entropy becomes, so the notion of an expanding universe is certainly not contrary to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Further this law does not exclude the possibility that locally entropy will decrease, as long as the total entropy will increase. That's the dumb error that creationists make when they state that human beings violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. As long as they are not closed systems, but systems in interaction with their environment (like getting energy from the sun, directly or indirectly) their entropy may decrease. You don't have to look at life for such examples: a simple example is the forming of snow crystals, which have a lower entropy than a corresponding amount of water vapour, but that doesn't mean that they violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

My way of weak thinking is

1) something has always existed because non-existence cannot exist

2) we don't know enough

3) we may need much bigger brains to comprehend the real reality of it all

4) something is everywhere albeit with variable densities of various kinds

5) an absolute vacuum is as unobtainable as absolute zero--every itty bit of space has something in it which in turn defines the space if only in regard to distance from one ostensible object to another (This'd mean if an object is propelled into space friction would perhaps eventually slow it down?)

6) if there is one universe why not more than one?

7) maybe dark matter is dead matter and not so much diffuse as lumpy--just invisible--from "dead" universes

8) is the red shift assuredly valid in regards to distance though time as understood now?

9) etc.

--Brant

[tjohnson]

Since there is no observation in a backward time direction, we ultimately cannot verify this. We can only speculate.

But there is observation backwards in time - that's precisely what we are doing when we observe the most distant objects in the universe. Also there's the background microwave radiation that was produced just after the alleged big bang.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

Say what?

You are contending that the light waves that reach us are actually moving backward in time?

Hmmmmm...

Michael

[tjohnson]

GS,

Say what?

You are contending that the light waves that reach us are actually moving backward in time?

Hmmmmm...

Michael

No, I'm saying the radiation is from the distant past so we are in essence looking back in time.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

The illusion of "in essence looking back in time" is not what I was talking about.

Michael

[tjohnson]

GS,

The illusion of "in essence looking back in time" is not what I was talking about.

Michael

It's not an illusion.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

Not an illusion of looking backward in time?

Then you are contending that we see light particles run backward in time?

You said no before. Now you say yes.

Which is it?

Michael

[tjohnson]

I said in essence we are looking back in time, not literally. This is not an illusion. Even when you look at the sun you are seeing what happened around 8 minutes ago. I don't know what you would call this but it is somewhat like looking back in time.

[Dragonfly]

I said in essence we are looking back in time, not literally. This is not an illusion. Even when you look at the sun you are seeing what happened around 8 minutes ago. I don't know what you would call this but it is somewhat like looking back in time.

You can see the Andromeda galaxy (a close neighbor) with the naked eye as it was 2.5 million years ago. With a telescope we can see individual stars in that galaxy. I'd call that looking back in time. With modern space observatories we can see the universe as it was some 13 billion years ago, about only 300000 years after the big bang. At that time the universe became transparent to radiation. When we'll succeed in observing gravitational waves we could in principle even look back to the beginning of the big bang.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

I was being literal. You knew that, didn't you?

I also consider essence to deal with the literal, but we might disagree there.

Anyway, I was talking literally about running time backwards. You were talking about something else using the same words. This is the concept/word confusion I talk about sometimes.

Back to the point. When you calculate backward from a forward projection, it only makes sense if you are literal in your thinking about time.

For instance, Dragonfly came up with the phrase, "about only 300000 years after the big bang."

Where did that figure come from, hell, even the big bang come from, if not a mathematical projection going backward in time?

Did it come from your "in essence" standard?

Michael

[Leonid]

I still have great difficulty attributing the causality of the existence of all structures solely to the nature of subparticles, especially when they are the same for everything.

Just because forms and structures can emerge from the bottom up, that doesn't mean that this is the only element in the universe causing it.

I don't have an answer to total causation, but I do have unanswered questions...

Emergence as sole cause or creative process doesn't answer them.

The closest I have come is to say that top and bottom exist as metaphysical starting points, not that the bottom is the only thing causing tops.

I can't conceive of a bottom without a top, anyway...

Michael

[Leonid]

MSK:"I don't have an answer to total causation,"

Nobody does. Aristotle understood that total causation means infinite regress and therefore represents contradiction.Existence in total has no cause.It's axiomatic.