brunumb wrote:What exactly is thoughtful belief?
When computer programmers are modelling the gravitational evolution of a galaxy they calculate each individual star within the entire gravitational field of the galaxy. They then move the star, accordingly. Then they move to the next star and do the same, an so on. In this way, the form of the entire galaxy is determined. But there are two things happening here;
1. each star contributes to the entire shape of the galaxy (bottom up causation)
2. the entire form of the galaxy determines the position of each star (top down causation)
In this way the entire system is a whole thing where the whole is determined by its parts and each part is determined by the whole. There is a feedback loop between the part and the whole.
Another example of this is an ecological system. The forest is made by each creature and plant it contains and it, in turn, determines the lives of the things that live in it. A complex feedback loop between the parts and the whole.
Another example is a human society; what the society is, is determined by the individuals in it and individual lives are influenced by the form the society is taking. Another feedback loop between the individual and the whole.
Quantum mechanics is another example. In Q.M. each particle is potentially entangled with all other particles. The universe is determined by its parts and each part is influenced by the entire universe.
The question now is, how can a human society, for example, be similar in some respects, to a galaxy in space? What is the connection? How can a forest have similarities with a galaxy or a human society? Why does this whole-part dynamic apply to what seem to be completely unconnected systems?
The answer must be that these systems have the same nature. The same nature expressed on different levels. And what this means is that the universe has a nature and that it is not simply a reductive 'bottom up' deterministic set of events. It is a whole thing and
has its own overarching nature that cannot easily be predicted deterministically.