Source
Flack (2017), LIT-1630, §1, §3 and §7; read in NOTE-1216.
What was actually shown
The move. “I propose we move from simple feedback to downward causation when components tune behaviour in response to estimates of coarse-grained, aggregate properties” (§1). The aggregate is computed by the components themselves, “endogenous coarse-graining” (§2). Because the components “are tuning to patterns they perceive and hence are ‘doing the work’”, the account claims to avoid the non-materialism objection (§1).
Weak form. “only a few components need to be tuning their behaviour to estimates of aggregate properties for there to be some downward causation in the system”; estimates need not be correct, predictive or shared (§1). In the macaque case: the power distribution “changes more slowly than the microscopic fight behaviour producing it and at least one individual uses estimates” of it to tune behaviour (§3).
Strong form (§1, citing [8–10]): aggregates “predictive of the future state of the system (slow variables)”; “robust to small perturbations”; estimates “used nearly universally by all components”; components “largely agree in their estimates”; and “as estimates converge there should be an increase in mutual information between the microscopic behaviour and the macroscopic properties”. “it makes sense to start talking of a new level of organization when the criteria for effective downward causation are met” (§1). §7 restates the level criteria with one addition: component estimates must be “functionally good approximations of the aggregate properties as computed by an observer with perfect information”.
What reinforces itself. The convergence of estimates is more likely “as a result of positive feedback induced by the downward causation itself” (§3), and correlation among components “amplifies itself through effective downward causation” (§7). No criterion in either list says that the components’ use of the variable preserves or regenerates it.
The reading could have come out otherwise: Flack could have made maintenance by use a criterion, and her example would have allowed it, since the signals that compose the power distribution are the members’ own behaviour, refreshed by continued fighting (§3). She does not.
What this does not say
- That apparent or effective downward causation is causation under any formal account. “I will not discuss in this paper when the operational concept of downward causation I am proposing conforms to strict definitions of causality” (§1).
- That the macaque system meets the strong criteria. §3 states them for the system as “when/if”, and the evidence is in [9,10,26,27], not here.
- That Flack denies regeneration matters. It is absent from her criteria, not argued against. Whether Flack 2012 (LIT-1122) states it is unread.
- That the two lists (§1 and §7) coincide. They differ, and the paper does not reconcile them (NOTE-1216, Limitations).
- That slowness has been shown necessary. It is a stipulated condition, with the reason “for tuning to be possible” asserted from [8–10] (§1).