“Ontological emergence” of inherent high-level properties with causal powers is witnessed nowhere. A non-substantialist conception
of emergence works much better. It allows downward causation, provided our concept of causality is transformed accordingly.
Key words emergence - causality - consciousness - neuroscience
A former version of this paper was intended as part of my contribution to the Mind & Life meeting in Dharamsala (India) in
October 2002 (in fact, only a small fraction of it was presented there). I thank all the participants, especially U. Goodenough,
S. Chu, and P.L. Luisi for their cogent discussion. Very special thanks are due to His Holiness the Dalai-Lama, who provided
both his intellectual insight and a quality which is seldom met in other conferences: a sense of unity of purpose and “embodiment”
of knowledge, beyond the differences in standpoint.