Levels of Reality

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Levels of Reality

• Roberto Poli .
• University of Trento and .
• Mitteleuropa Foundation .
• http//www.mitteleuropafoundation.org

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Questions

• What is a level of reality?
• Are there differences between LoR and levels of
  organization?
• Are there differences between levels of reality
  and granularities?
• What is the proper role levels of reality play
  within ontology?
• What generates the levels?
• Why are they discrete?
• What separates them?
• What connects them?
• Are there overlaps between the theory of levels
  and other theories?
• Who are the thinkers who have developed theories
  of levels?
• Why is the theory of levels so little discussed
  in the literature?

• Quick presentation of my way of reading levels of
  reality
• Some of the underlining intuitions

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What is there in the world?

• Material things, plants and animals
• Their activities and products
• What about thoughts, sensations and decisions?
• What about customs, laws, languages, families,
  money, wars and movies?

Everything that has some effect

• Against mainstream opinion according to which
  only the really real ( the physical) is
  ontologically relevant

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Part-Whole Analysis
Level Analysis
Level categories may not distinguish
individuals Levels are within individuals(but
not as their parts)
Interplay between P-W and Levels P-W W-P within
the same level W-W either within the same level
or between different levels
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Levels of reality

• Categorial perspective
• Level Cohesive group of categories
• Whenever possible, relations between levels are
  specified through the relations between their
  categories
• When a category Cat applies to an entity A we
  will write Apply(Cat,A)
• Categories
• Universal categories
• Level categories
• Distinguish/coordinate levels
• Two basic cases (simplified)

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Case one (simplified version)

• Set of entities sharing the same
  (intrinsic/structural/defining) properties
  (categories)
• Some of the entities may have further
  (intrinsic/structural/defining) properties not
  shared by the other entities of the set
• Physical/biological entities
• Properties shared by all entities mass, weight,
  volume,
• Properties shared by some of them (the biological
  ones) life, metabolism, reproduction,
• In short Smaller vs. bigger groups of categories
• PhysCat ? BiolCat

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Case two (simplified version)

• Two sets of entities characterized by
• Two (or more) groups of disjoint categories
• A relation of existential dependence (ED)
• Brain/Mind (biological vs psychological items)
• Two categorially independent groups of entities
  A, B
• A relation of dependence between them ED(B,A)
• Categorial independence existential dependence
• (NB there are different relations of existential
  dependence)
• BrainCat ? PsycCat ? ED(B,A) ? Apply(BrainCat,A)
  ? Apply(PsychCat,B)

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Some Terminology

• Case one relation of overforming (OF)
• Matterformmatterform
• Case two relation of building-above (BA)
• Bearerborne
• Levels linked by an OF relation are said layers
• Levels linked by a BA relation are said strata
• Layers segmentations internal to a realm
  (stratum)
• Strata new categorial series existential
  dependence

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Summary

• Real Ideal (temporal atemporal items)
• The naïve theory of levels
• Towards a non-reductionist theory of levels
• Three main strata of reality (material,
  psychological, social)
• Each stratum presents its own specific internal
  organization
• Laws of categorial dependence
• Laws of categorial autonomy (independence)
• Laws of categorial coherence

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Strata of reality(linked by BA relations)
Psychological Stratum
Social Stratum
Material Stratum
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The stratas main partitions
Content (Personal spirit)
Product (Reified spirit)
Act (Psychological core)
Action (Social core)
Biological
Shown relationswithin strata OF for the
material str. BA for the psych. str. BA for the
social str.
Physical
Spirit
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The material stratum
Ecology (Ecosystem)
Biology
Etology (Population)
Biology proper (Organism)
Chemistry
Physics
Overforming relations
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The Structure of the Social Core

• Prerequisites
• Population Space
• Dimensions
• Information
• Language Education Science
• Organization
• Law Economy Politics
• Living (style of)
• Custom Art Ethics Religion
• Technology

Bailey (modified)
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Internal organization of strata

• Material stratum series of layers
• Psychological core (skipped)
• Social core network of sub-strata

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Laws of levels

• Laws of Stratification
• Laws of Dependency
• Laws of Coherence
• Basic intuition
• Law of force Lower levels are stronger than
  higher levels
• Law of height Higher levels have an higher
  capacity to constrain lower levels
• We cannot modify the laws of physics, but we can
  use them for our purposes/needs
• The main law of the theory of levels force and
  height complement each other

Hartmanns theory of levels
Spiritual
BA
Psychological
BA
Biological
OF
Physical
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Problem

• Hartmanns main law (the force/height
  contraposition) requires a linear structure
• As soon as the theory of levels adopts a
  tangled structure, Hartmanns main law can be
  applied only to its lower linear fragment (the
  material stratum, in my terminology)
• Social stratum Hartmanns main law becomes the
  claim that all the aspects of social reality have
  the same force/height or they depend from a
  determining factor (be it economy, or whatever)
• I would instead propose that the substrata of the
  social stratum have (within limits to be
  established) both variable strengths and heights
• It may well be that most of the times economy is
  the ruling aspect however, its functioning is
  usually constrained by other components (values,
  laws, policies, etc)
• (Small?) Differences in force can be overcome by
  (important?) differences in height

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Theories of Levels

• Levels as Simple Hierarchies
• Linear Hierarchies(bricks-like picture)

• Levels as Tangled Structures
• Linear hierarchies
• Co-determinations
• Between Layers
• Between Strata

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Levels

• Strata
• Different series of categories
• Bearer-Borne Dependence
• Building-above (Überbauung)
• Layers
• The higher layer adds new categories
• Matter-Form Dependence
• Overforming (Überformung)

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Twofold Determination

• Co-determination (co-evolution) of the mental and
  the social levels (systems)
• Any one of the two acts as context (environment)
  of the other, that is
• Consciousness is the environment of sociality
• Agency is the environment of mentality (Luhmann)

Psychological
Social
Material
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Not considered

• Temporal scales
• Command hierarchies (echelons)
• Families of causes and their inteplay
• The difference between
• Levels of reality ( ontology)
• Levels of descriptions ( epistemology)

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The end (for now)
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Appendices
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Spirit
Reified Spirit
Personal Spirit
Social core
Psychological core
Biological
Physical
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Spirit
Reified Spirit
Personal Spirit
Social core
Psychological core
Biological
Physical
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The real-ideal connection
Ideal
Social
Psychological
Social
Psychological
Material
Material
Ideal
The ontological side(The ideal as a
presupposition)
The epistemological side(Accessing the ideal)
(The ideal is embedded into the real, but not as
its internal determinant)
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Naïve Theory of Levels

• A level is a large collection
• of the units of the lower level

Its intended model
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Naïve Theory of Levels

• Levels structure
• Serial (one level after another)
• Pyramidal (lower-levels are larger)
• (Based on ur-elemente)

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Towards a non-reductionistic theory of levels

• Husserl
• Hartmann
• Ingarden
• Dooyeweerd
• Plessner
• Polanyi
• Feibleman

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Theory of Integrative Levels (1)

• Complexity of the levels increases upwards
• Higher levels depend on the lower ones
• The lower level is directed by the higher
• For any given level, its mechanism lies at the
  level below and its purpose at the level above
• Each level organises the level or levels below it
  plus one emergent quality
• A disturbance introduced into any one level
  reverberates at all the levels it covers
• (J.K. Feibleman, British journal for the
  philosophy of science, 1954, pp. 59-66)

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Theory of Integrative Levels (2)

• The time required for a change shortens as we
  ascend the levels
• The higher the level, the smaller its population
  of instances
• It is impossible to reduce the higher level to
  the lower
• An organisation at any level is a distortion of
  the level below
• Events at any given level affect organisations of
  other levels
• Whatever is affected as an organisation has some
  effect as an organisation

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Extended and branching levels

• Basic Theory
• Each level is the name of a very considerable
  group of sub-levels
• There is a level below physics geometry
• Extended the biological continues to build into
  the psychological and the cultural
• Branching certain levels build up to two or more
  fields

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Strata of the Real WorldHartmann
Building-above (Überbauung)
Building-above (Überbauung)
Overforming (Überformung)
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Hartmanns Laws of Stratification

• Every level comprises categories of the lower
  level, but in no case do the categories of a
  higher level appear in a lower one
• This reappearance of the categories is always
  limited
• The categories as they pass from lower to higher
  levels undergo change
• The reappearance of lower categories never
  constitutes the character of the higher level.
  This stems from the intervention of a categorial
  novelty which is independent of the lower
  categories and consists in the emergence of new
  categories

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Hartmanns Laws of Dependency

• The general categories encompass all the levels
• The categories of the lower levels are the
  foundation for the higher ones, but they are
  unaffected by their categories
• The categories of the lower levelsare stronger
  than those of the higherlevels, but they have
  lesser structural power
• Overforming what is categorized by the lower
  categories helps to constitute the substrate of
  the higher level
• Building-above what is categorized by the lower
  categories acts as the existential bearer of the
  higher level

Acceptable only from the point of view of a
simple theory of levels
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Command Hierarchies (Echelons)

• Thomas's situation
• Coutu's tendency in situation
• Cassirer's symbolic medium
• Dewey's transactions
• Sorokin's culture
• Lewin's life space
• Wrights analytic field

The Ontology of Power

• Field
• The area in which a force operates
• Continuum of energy through some medium region
  of potential forces (dynamic field)
• Balance or equilibrium between elements,
  interests or forces
• Interdependence between elements

• Antifields
• Restrain, neutralize, or annihilate the free
  adjustment of elements to field forces
• This is done through regulating by coercive
  command their mutual behavior
• Antifields are groups, i.e. formal structures of
  law-norms and authoritative roles

R.J. Rummel, Understanding Conflict and War. Vol.
2 The Conflict Helix,Wiley Sons, New York,
1976, chaps. 22-23
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Temporal Scales

• Items have remarcably different time scales
• Subatomic particle, atom, planet, galaxy
• Cell, organism, species
• Hypothesis
• Within each layer, objects with a shorter
  life-time scale may act as the matter of objects
  with a longer life-time scale (cell-organism
  relationship)
• Between contiguous layers, objects with a longer
  life-time scale may act as the matter of objects
  with a shorter time-scale (relationship between
  physical persistence and biological persistence)

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Causes

• billiard ball case
• Interaction
• Part-whole
• From lower to higher levels
• From higher to lower levels
• Anticipation

DOWN
UP
BACK
Item
FOR
IN
FOR
OUT
UP
DOWN
Past
Future
Present
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Levels of reality and levels of description

• Levels of reality do have their own type of
  causality
• Levels of descriptions do not have proper types
  of causality