A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation
Open accessAbstract
Must higher level biological processes always be derivable from lower level data and mechanisms, as assumed by the idea that an organism is completely defined by its genome? Or are higher level properties necessarily also causes of lower level behaviour, involving actions and interactions both ways? This article uses modelling of the heart, and its experimental basis, to show that downward causation is necessary and that this form of causation can be represented as the influences of initial and boundary conditions on the solutions of the differential equations used to represent the lower level processes. These insights are then generalized. A priori, there is no privileged level of causation. The relations between this form of 'biological relativity' and forms of relativity in physics are discussed. Biological relativity can be seen as an extension of the relativity principle by avoiding the assumption that there is a privileged scale at which biological functions are determined.
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The cardiac rhythm is the net consequence of the interplay between a cell's membrane and the ion channels in it.
“Take, for example, the cardiac rhythm-a behavior that is the net consequence of the interplay between a cell's membrane and the ion channels in it (Noble, 2012).”
From Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist Bias (2017) · cites this paper as Noble, 2012
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- Authors
- Noble, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Noble, Denis
- ORCID
- Noble, Denis
- Venue
- Interface Focus
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2011-11-09
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 55-64
- ISSN
- 2042-8898 (ISSN-L)
- 2042-8901
- PMC
- PMC3262309
- OpenAlex
- W2151659911
- Cited by
- 451
- References
- 85
- Citations by year
- 2026: 69 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 90.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Interface Focus (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy and History of Science
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Systems and Dynamics
- Keywords
- downward causation, levels of biological organization, differential equations, initial and boundary conditions, principle of relativity, emergent properties, reductionism
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