If higher level operations were principled by lower operations rather than by a higher level of being, then those (higher level) operations would merely be an effect of the interactions of lower level beings: they would be epiphenomenal. And if epiphenomenal, then agency would be an illusion. But if agency is not illusory, it is not epiphenomenal and higher level operations are not the effect of lower level operations. The only alternative is that there is a higher level of being present. But how does that relate to the lower--as being is to capacity?
This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...
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