To recap on the last post, my behaviour is determined by my personality, level of intellectual ability, physical prowess, ability and willingness to manage my emotional state etc., and equally by the (usually unwritten) rules, or norms of the family that I live in. My family’s behaviour is determined by the collective behaviours of members, and also by the rules/norms of our extended family. And so on.
So systems (and what we have called super-systems, such as a family in respect of an individual, or a community in respect of an extended family) do not really act independently.
The whole of the system (i.e. the community) is determined by the traits, or characteristics – what we call the properties – of the parts (the families) but also, the parts are influenced by the properties of the whole.
Getting back to me as an individual, there is an upward causation and downward causation operating on me all the time. My neurophysiology causes me to be who I am, (upward causation), and the rules/norms of my extended family also cause me to be who I am, (downward causation). (Remember – causation means simply the action of causing something to happen).
Let me give a practical example of downward causation here – in respect of my family in my life at age, say, 22, when the last of my grandparents died. Of course, there were other elements of downward causation, e.g. school, friends, employment etc. but family is probably the most influential.
I would say that since I lived with both my parents until I was almost an adult, I estimate that both had virtually equal influence, though in different ways, on me. It is also interesting to ponder on the downward causation of my four grandparents. I estimate that my mother’s father had the biggest influence on me because he died when I was about 22 whereas my father’s father died when I was only 12. My father’s mother died before I was born and my mother’s mother died when I was 6. In other words, the norms and values of my mother’s father probably caused more effects in me than any of my other grandparents. In addition to the fact that he didn’t die until I was an adult, he had what I would describe as a strong personality, and I felt liked by him, thereby amplifying the downward causation.
My eight great-grandparents have an indirect – sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious – influence on me.
Even though I never met any of them, stories of some of their lives have been passed down through just three generations. Others are hidden and not known to me. The ones whose stories I have heard probably have a conscious influence and the influence of the hidden ones is unconscious. (When I say influence I am talking about norms, interests, habits, values etc.)
In general, it probably follows that the farther back we go – say, for example, our 32 great-great-great grandparents – the less will be the influence of their individual personalities, and the more will be the influence of a kind of collective personality, (that is, a synthesis of all the individual ones) in respect of downward causation because it will be filtered through many generations and impacted by far more influences. (These influences feed into the Atlantic Ocean of emotions that I referred to already).
Another aspect of downward causation and upward causation is manifest in one of the many paradoxes of being human. That is, the phenomenon of wanting to be the same as everyone else, have a history, fit into our family and society in general (downward causation) yet retain our individuality and be true to ourselves (upward causation).
Both desires (being part of the greater human family while at the same time ensuring our uniqueness within that family) which at first sight appear to oppose each other, seem to be of great importance to us.
Perhaps getting the balance of these opposing forces is our life project!
Not everyone is the same, of course. Apologies to younger readers here – but showing my sixties bias – we are all on a spectrum ranging from the Dedicated Follower of Fashion immortalised in the satirical song by The Kinks to The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby, i.e. someone who appears to be completely at one with alone-ness.
It might be interesting to look at downward causation in a global sense – and observe how some people are remembered and some are forgotten.
For example Julius Caesar, who lived over 2,000 years ago, is remembered by (probably) most people in the Western World. Because he was an emperor of what was at that time the world’s greatest empire he was revered by many who wanted to be powerful and saw themselves as emperors. Perhaps someone has some global downward causation until their influence in the world (however little that influence might be) is no more. In the case of Julius Caesar, I believe that his name lived on into the 20th Century in the titles of Czar and Kaiser!
Contrast that to my great grandfather who only died in 1913, 12 years before my father was born. He is only remembered by individuals within our extended family that have the interest to find out.
An interesting aspect of a family is that it tends to sustain or maintain its own properties, or the characteristics which it is known by. Sometimes those properties are of benefit, i.e. bring some reward, and sometimes they are not, but, curiously, they are still maintained.
A family will almost always discourage departures from a preferred stability, to maintain a particular characteristic, like a spinning wheel, which through its own momentum maintains its direction.
There are similarities here to the termite colony which I mentioned in the post on emergence. The colony possesses a kind of super-intelligence that seems to be greater than each individual termite’s intelligence. This ensures stability in respect of temperature, size, amount of oxygen, and any other factors that are necessary for the colony to survive and thrive. Any sudden change in any of the factors would be harmful to the colony’s survival.
It is important to remember this tendency-to-maintain-stability when we are supporting a family with the goal of changing patterns that we deem to be harmful. Sudden change forced from the outside can sometimes do more harm than good – whereas slow change initiated from within is likely to be a lot more enduring.