TY - GEN
T1 - Evolutionary transitions and top-down causation
AU - Walker, Sara
AU - Cisneros, Luis
AU - Davies, Paul
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Top-down causation has been suggested to occur at all scales of biological organization as a mechanism for explaining the hierarchy of structure and causation in living systems (Campbell, 1974; Auletta et al., 2008; Davies, 2006b, 2012; Ellis, 2012). Here we propose that a transition from bottom-up to top-down causation - mediated by a reversal in the flow of information from lower to higher levels of organization, to that from higher to lower levels of organization - is a driving force for most major evolutionary transitions. We suggest that many major evolutionary transitions might therefore be marked by a transition in causal structure. We use logistic growth as a toy model for demonstrating how such a transition can drive the emergence of collective behavior in replicative systems. We then outline how this scenario may have played out in those major evolutionary transitions in which new, higher levels of organization emerged, and propose possible methods via which our hypothesis might be tested.
AB - Top-down causation has been suggested to occur at all scales of biological organization as a mechanism for explaining the hierarchy of structure and causation in living systems (Campbell, 1974; Auletta et al., 2008; Davies, 2006b, 2012; Ellis, 2012). Here we propose that a transition from bottom-up to top-down causation - mediated by a reversal in the flow of information from lower to higher levels of organization, to that from higher to lower levels of organization - is a driving force for most major evolutionary transitions. We suggest that many major evolutionary transitions might therefore be marked by a transition in causal structure. We use logistic growth as a toy model for demonstrating how such a transition can drive the emergence of collective behavior in replicative systems. We then outline how this scenario may have played out in those major evolutionary transitions in which new, higher levels of organization emerged, and propose possible methods via which our hypothesis might be tested.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84872231323&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84872231323&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.7551/978-0-262-31050-5-ch038
DO - 10.7551/978-0-262-31050-5-ch038
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84872231323
SN - 9780262310505
T3 - Artificial Life 13: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, ALIFE 2012
SP - 283
EP - 290
BT - Artificial Life 13
PB - MIT Press Journals
T2 - 13th International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems: Artificial Life 13, ALIFE 2012
Y2 - 19 July 2012 through 22 July 2012
ER -