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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Application of Granger Causality Analysis of the Directed Functional Connection in Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment
Published on: August 7, 2017
How causal is "circular causality"?
1Center for Data Science and Complexity, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
Abstract:
Network physiology addresses global physiological states that arise self-organized through the interactions among the individual components of the human organism and is therefore intimately linked to Synergetics with its central concepts of order parameters, enslavement, and circular causality. Explanations of self-organization phenomena invoking these concepts exhibit a distinctive explanatory power and scientific fruitfulness across disciplines, in part due to their appeal to downward causation. Downward causation is not only actively discussed in philosophy and philosophy of science, particularly in debates on reductionism and emergence, but is also attracting considerable interest in scientific research on complex systems. However, at least when understood in ontological terms, it remains a philosophically delicate and contested notion.
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