复杂系统的下向因果关系

Emergence,Evolution and Mind-body Problem(Special Column)

复杂性科学的发展重新掀起了突现研究的新浪潮，其中关键的问题是探索突现的下向因果关系。在心灵哲学中，许多学者对依随突现、因果突现、模拟突现进行了细致的概念分析，形成了一种将下向因果关系与复杂系统突现结合起来研究的新进路，可称之为复杂系统的下向因果关系研究。

From December 13th to 18th in 2010,the International Conference on 'the Cross-Cutting Issues and Frontier Issues of Contemporary Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Mind:Emergence,Evolution and the Mind-body Problem' was held in Guangzhou with the joint sponsor of South China Normal University,Chinese Society for Dialectics of Nature,Department of Philosophy at Harvard University and Asia International Open University(Macao).At this Conference,the discussion between Professor Humphreys and Chinese scholars on the issue of context,level,emergence and causal relationship caught participants' great attention.This set of articles introduces their viewpoints and comments on each other.Professor Paul Humphreys and Professor Yan Ze-xian,Fan Dong-ping,Zhang Hua-xia all claimed that we should do research on causal relation from the perspective of Dynamics.Professor Humphreys argue that the contemporary division between physicalists,those who hold that all real properties,objects,and states are physical,and dualists,those who maintain that besides the realm of the physical there is a separate domain of specifically mental properties,objects and states,is too crude,so the approaches to emergence which are based on supervenience relations are unhelpful and that a better approach is through using a kind of contextual emergence.Professor Fan and Yan believed that the key features and main forms of complex system can be generalized as downward restraint and selective cause,downward control and informational cause.Professor Zhang stated that,if we try to integrate two schools,namely the theory of condition-cause and effect-cause,and to connect the theory of INUS condition with the modern theory of the causal power and causal process,we can get the research frame to describe the downward causation of emergence,without violating the closure principle of causal power in generalized physical world.