Toy Models of Top Down Causation

Abstract

Models in which causation arises from higher level structures as well as from microdynamics may be relevant to unifying quantum theory with classical physics or general relativity. They also give a way of defining a form of panprotopsychist property dualism, in which consciousness and material physics causally affect one another. I describe toy models based on probabilistic cellular automata that illustrate possibilities and difficulties with these ideas.

Presented at "Models of Consciousness" conference, Mathematical Institute, Oxford University, September 2019. v2 Discussion extended; references added. Accepted version