Recent developments in nonlinear dynamics have found wide application in many areas of science from physics to neuroscience. Nonlinear phenomena such as feedback loops, inter-level relations, wholes constraining and modifying the behavior of their parts, and memory effects are interesting candidates for emergence and downward causation. Rayleigh-Bénard convection is an example of a nonlinear system that, I suggest, yields important insights for metaphysics and philosophy of science. In this paper I propose convection as a model for downward causation in classical mechanics, far more robust and less speculative than the examples typically provided in the philosophy of mind literature. Although the physics of Rayleigh-Bénard convection is quite complicated, this model provides a much more realistic and concrete example for examining various assumptions and arguments found in emergence and philosophy of mind debates. After reviewing some key concepts of nonlinear dynamics, complex systems and the basic physics of Rayleigh-Bénard convection, I begin that examination here by (1) assessing a recently proposed definition for emergence and downward causation, (2) discussing some typical objections to downward causation and (3) comparing this model with Sperry’s examples. 2The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relations among things; outside these relations there is no reality knowable. Poincaré 1.

Physicalism is the claim that that there is nothing in the world but the physical. Philosophers who defend physicalism have to confront a well-known dilemma, known as Hempel’s dilemma, concerning the definition of “the physical”: if “the physical ” is whatever current physics says there is, then physicalism is most probably false; but if “the physical ” is whatever the true theory of physics would say that there is, we have that physicalism is vacuous and runs the risk of becoming trivial. This paper has two parts. The first, negative, part is devoted to developing a criticism of the so-called via negativa response to Hempel’s dilemma. In the second, more substantial, part, I propose to take the first horn of Hempel’s dilemma. However, I argue for a broad construal of “current physics ” and characterize “the physical ” accordingly. The virtues of the broad characterization of “the physical ” are: first, it makes physicalism less likely to be false; and second, it ties our understanding of “the physical ” to the reasons we have for believing in physicalism. That is, it fulfills the desideratum of construing our theses according to the reasons we have to believe in them. 1.

Why ‘non-mental ’ won’t work: on Hempel’s dilemma

Mental and neural states are related to one another by vertical (synchronic) interlevel relations and by horizontal (diachronic) intralevel relations. For particular choices of such relations, problems arise if causal efficacy is ascribed to mental states. In a series of influential papers and books, Kim has presented his much discussed “supervenience argument”, which ultimately amounts to the dilemma that mental states either are causally inefficacious or they hold the threat of overdetermining neural states. Forced by this disjunction, Kim votes in favor of overdetermination and, ultimately, reduction. We propose a perspective on mental causation that dissolves the assumption of a tension between horizontal and vertical determination. For mental states to be causally efficacious, they must be dynamically stable. This important requirement can be implemented by combining a key idea of supervenience, multiple realization, with the recently introduced vertical interlevel relation of contextual emergence. Both together deflate Kim’s dilemma and reflate the causal efficacy of mental states.