Mental causation in a physical world: A self-causation model of downward causation

Abstract

Downward causation is self-causation, the causel effect from the whole to its parts, and is considered a promising theory for the problem of mental causation. However, it remains to be clarified how an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power can arise. Here, we argue that a feedback control of lower micro-level synaptic weights using higher macro-level algebraic structural feedback errors is a model of downward causation. The feedback control consists of two mechanisms: observation of the feedback error and control of the feedback error. The two mechanisms can be implemented at two different levels of the hierarchy. Macro-level feedback error is described by algebra of supervenient macro-level functions, independent of the external cause. The supervenient macro-level feedback error constraining of the micro synaptic weights through feedback control is downward causation.