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THE CELL. “This information cannot be derived in a bottom-up way, because it implicitly embodies information about environmental niches. It would be different in a different environment. Hence, higher level conditions influence what happens at the lower levels, even if the lower levels do the work. This is what I characterize as top-down causation.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

TOP DOWN CAUSATION. “These, however, do not extend to truly complex systems such as a single living cell. It seems that developing very complex systems such as those occurring in biology requires top-down causation, needed in order to build up the necessary biological information.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

BOTTOM UP CAUSATION. “Self-assembly and self-structuring based on bottom-up action alone can lead to emergence of structures such as crystals and simple biological molecules, or of dynamical systems with attractors leading to entities such as stars and galaxies, and to more complex phenomena such as Bénard cells, patterns associated with the reaction–diffusion equation and sand piles, the dynamics of the Game of Life, properties of slime mould, existence of ant colonies and the behaviour of flocks of birds.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

NESTED HIERARCHIES. “Multi-fold causation takes place in such systems. A network of causal influences and constraints interact to produce an outcome.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

EXPLAINING UPWARDS. “Ideas applicable to lower level causation do not by themselves succeed in explaining the higher level behaviours, for the concepts employed are simply not appropriate to the higher level kinds of causation.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

STRATA OF PHENOMENA. “Each of the different levels of the hierarchy function according to laws of behaviour appropriate to that level, and are describable only in terms of language suited to that level (the concepts that are basic to molecular biology, such as genes and proteins, cannot be described in the language of a particle physicist, such as quarks and gluons).” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

“EMERGENCE of a higher level system from the lower level modules takes place when reliable higher level behaviour arises out of the lower level actions taking place in the context of this structure, with lower level units grouped together to form higher level modules that one can identify as meaningful entities that persist over time and have identifiable laws of behaviour.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

THREE LEGS OF EMERGENCE. “Each of these aspects (‘modular’, ‘hierarchical’ and ‘structure’) is crucial in the emergence of complexity out of interactions between simpler units.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

LEGGO STRUCTURES. “The basis of complexity is modular hierarchical structures, leading to emergent levels of structure and function based on lower level networks.” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn

FROM QUANTUM TO CLASSICAL. “Physics underlies all complexity, including our own existence. How is this possible? How can our own lives emerge from interactions of electrons, protons and neutrons?” https://lnkd.in/dnngg6a View in LinkedIn