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How Can Physics Underlie the Mind? pp 133–216Cite as

Kinds of Top-Down Causation

Part of the The Frontiers Collection book series (FRONTCOLL)

Abstract

Top-down causation is a generic concept. The previous chapters have given many examples.

Keywords

  • Symbolic System
  • Feedback Control System
  • Abstract Entity
  • Adaptive Selection
  • Multilevel Selection

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The higher derivative form (3.7) can be reduced to this form of a system of first order equations by defining variables \(\Phi _j^{(n)}(t) : = \mathrm{d}^{n}\Phi _j/\mathrm{d}t(t)\).

  2. 2.

    I am aware that some present day feedback control systems use principles of adaptive control. I believe they should be labeled as such, to distinguish them from the basic cybernetic processes identified by Wiener, in which the goal is fixed.

  3. 3.

    From the viewpoint of this book, the characterisation ‘supervised Hebbian learning’ is a misnomer. The essence of Hebbian learning (‘wire together, fire together’) is that it is a local bottom-up habituation process, taking place irrespective of high level outcome. It is not a learning process, in the sense intended here, as the outcome is independent of context.

  4. 4.

    See [122] and the discussions at http://musicoflife.co.uk/ for examples.

  5. 5.

    For a graphic demonstration of the protection provided in this context by the common purpose of a collective of buffalo, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHIkUzRw2jw.

  6. 6.

    This example is considered in depth in Brown and Murphy [28, pp. 57–58] and in Martinez and Moya [128, pp. 7/16–8/16].

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    George Ellis

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Ellis, G. (2016). Kinds of Top-Down Causation. In: How Can Physics Underlie the Mind?. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49809-5_4

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