ReviewPhilosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences2017
Coarse-graining as a downward causation mechanism.
Review in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 168 citations in OpenAlex.
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- What Is a Pattern in Statistical Mechanics? Formalizing Structure and Patterns in One-Dimensional Spin Lattice Models with Computational Mechanics.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Quantifying emergent complexity.Patterns (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Identifying and investigating emergent behaviour in neural systems.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Top-down perspectives on cell membrane potential and protein transcription.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Beyond Mechanism-Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Review
- The causal arrows from genotype, environment, and management to plant phenotype are double headed.Journal of experimental botany · 2025Review
- Constructing stability: optimal learning in noisy ecological niches.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Structured community transitions explain the switching capacity of microbial systems.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Network ecology: Tie fitness in social context(s).Social networks · 2024Article
- Efficient, Formal, Material, and Final Causes in Biology and Technology.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Inferring the decision rules that drive co-foraging affiliations in wild mixed-species parrot groups.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency in developmental biology.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2023Review
- Incorporating human behaviour into Earth system modelling.Nature human behaviour · 2022Review
- Explaining pre-emptive acclimation by linking information to plant phenotype.Journal of experimental botany · 2022Review
- Biology, Buddhism, and AI: Care as the Driver of Intelligence.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Anthropological Prosociality via Sub-Group Level Selection.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2022Article
- Minimal Developmental Computation: A Causal Network Approach to Understand Morphogenetic Pattern Formation.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Exploring how healthcare teams balance the neurodynamics of autonomous and collaborative behaviors: a proof of concept.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Downward causation is the controversial idea that 'higher' levels of organization can causally influence behaviour at 'lower' levels of organization. Here I propose that we can gain traction on downward causation by being operational and examining how adaptive systems identify regularities in evolutionary or learning time and use these regularities to guide behaviour. I suggest that in many adaptive systems components collectively compute their macroscopic worlds through coarse-graining. I further suggest we move from simple feedback to downward causation when components tune behaviour in response to estimates of collectively computed macroscopic properties. I introduce a weak and strong notion of downward causation and discuss the role the strong form plays in the origins of new organizational levels. I illustrate these points with examples from the study of biological and social systems and deep neural networks.This article is part of the themed issue 'Reconceptualizing the origins of life'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.