#top down processing

Bottom up and top down processing are techniques of data processing and information ordering, most commonly involving computer software, but also other humanistic and scientific hypotheses. In a normal day those two methods can be noticed as a type of thinking and tutoring. In several situations top down processing is applied as a word replacement for examination or decomposition, and bottom-up of combining.

A top down processing (often identified as stepwise style) is basically the splitting up of a system to acquire understanding of its compositional sub-systems. In each top-down method a review associated with the program is designed, identifying but not outlining any of the basic subsystems. After that, every single subsystem gets processed in even higher details, at times in lots of extra subsystem levels, until the entire specification is reduced to base elements. The top down processing model usually comes with the assist of "black boxes", those provide great support and make it much less difficult to operate. Even so, black boxes may possibly fail to elucidate basic mechanisms or be enough comprehensive to reasonably verify the design.

> > Here’s a little thought experiment about free will. Let’s say that > > there exists a technology which will allow us to completely control > > another person’s neurology. What if two people use this technology to > > control each other? If one person started before the other, then they > > could effectively ‘disarm’ the others control over them preemptively, > > but what if they both began at the exact same time? Would one ‘win’ > > control over the other somehow? Would either of them even be able to > > try to win? How would they know if they were controlling the other or > > being controlled to think they are controlling the other? > > Complete control over anything is simply impossible. Control is just a > feeling and not fundamental. It depends what you mean by complete control. If I choose to hit the letter m on my keyboard, am I not controlling the keyboard to the extent that it is controllable? > The closest one can get to controlling the brain is to make it > dysfunctional. It's a bit boring, but the most realistic answer is that both > would fall unconscious, as that is the only result of exerting excessive > control over a brain. > It's the same result as if you try to totally control an ecosystem, or an > economy. It'll destroy the natural order, as control is not a fundamental > ordering principle. I generally agree. The thought experiment is to make people consider the fallacy of exclusively bottom up processing. I don't think that you could actually control a brain, I'm just saying that if you could, how do you get around the fact that it violates the assumption that only neurons can control the brain. If my neurons control a machine that control another person's neurons, then what happens? How does either the master or slave know if they are controlling or being controlled? The point was to show that bottom up exclusivity fails, and that  we must consider that our ordinary intuition of bi-directional, high-low processing interdependence may indeed be valid. > > It seems like you think of control or will as something fundamental, and I > don't see any reason to assume that it is. That's a reasonable objection. If it's not fundamental, what is it composed of, and why is there an appearance of anything other than whatever that is? >Honestly I that we think that we > have "free", independent will is just the arrogance of our ego that feels it > has to have a fundamentally special place in the universe. I used to think that too, but now I see that it's every bit as much of an egotistical arrogance to De-anthropomorphize ourselves. It's an inverted, passive aggressive egotism to perpetually look to other processes above and below our native level of individual cohesion to give credit or blame, while all the while hiding invisibly behind the voyeur's curtain.

Two days ago I posted this riddle:

"You're walking through the woods and you come upon a cabin. Everyone inside is dead. What happened?"

If you asked any "yes" or "no" questions as permitted, you would have been able to eliminate a great number of possible answers and would quickly realize that the "cabin" in this riddle is not the kind of "cabin" one would normally expect to find in the woods.

The answer is that the "cabin" was actually a plane cabin, and the individuals died of a plane crash.

This riddle tests your capacity to engage in divergent thinking, or the ability to look at a problem and its constituents in multiple was in order to engage in insight problem solving to answer the question.

Most individuals have difficulty coming up with this solution. This is because--in a cognitive psychological context--top down processing (or the fact that we perceive, think, and understand things in a way largely influenced by our past experiences, knowledge, and expectations) inhibits our ability to alter our interpretation of the word "cabin" in order to solve this riddle. We have a schema (constructed through top down processing) of what a "cabin" is if we are walking through the woods. Our minds have difficulty "flipping the switch" as a product of rigorous use of top down processing.

Divergent thinking usually comes more easily to more creative individuals (true creativity, by its definition in cognitive psychology, actually demands divergent thinking) who are able to unconsciously set aside their mental biases and schemas in order to draw such conclusions.