Definition
For a system described at two levels, parts X and a macro-variable V that supervenes on them, and for a stated target (CLAIM-152), the drive profile at time t over a window is the pair:
- Within a level: the architecture (CLAIM-167).
- Hierarchical: one member’s state predicts the others’ and not the reverse.
- Peer: mutual.
- Diffuse: no member predicts the others beyond the rest.
- Across levels: the kind. This is read from the information
decomposition of LIT-025 (Rosas et al.’s ΦID, as reviewed there).
- Aggregate: no synergy. V adds nothing to predicting the future beyond X, and V is a resultant.
- Top-down: downward causation D > 0. V predicts individual parts’ futures beyond what the parts do. It is strongest when the effect does not depend on how V is realized (THEORY-133).
- Bidirectional: D > 0 while V is itself produced by the parts’ joint activity. This is circular causality, as an order parameter has in THEORY-069.
- Emergent: causal decoupling G > 0. V predicts its own future in a way no subset of parts accounts for. No part drives, and “who drives?” is answered “the whole, at this level”.
Time-indexed. The profile is estimated over a window and can change: a system can move between kinds, and a member can come to drive and stop. A sequence of profiles is the system’s drive history.
What it is not
- Not agency. A profile says where drive sits. Whether the driver is an agent is QUESTION-009.
- Not a metaphysics of levels. Downward causation here is the information-theoretic quantity, under the interventionist reading of THEORY-138. Kim’s exclusion worry is met system by system, as in THEORY-133, not settled once.
- Not free of choices. The decomposition depends on the macro-variable and coordinates (LIT-025 defends this), so profiles are relative to them.
Why this name
The owner deferred the choice on 2026-10-11: “I’ll defer too you on the nae question.” The name is kept.
- “Drive” is the question the term answers, “who drives?”, in the words the owner asked it in.
- “Profile” says it is a reading across axes, at a time and for a target, not a property the system has once and for all.
- “Control architecture” was rejected. “Architecture” already names the within-level axis, and “control system” is the lowest tier of the nesting in CLAIM-155. The name would blur both.
- “Causal regime” was rejected. “Regime” is the will paper’s action-generating regime (TERM-019), a different thing.