ABSTRACT
The specification of the course of the physical world is the result of the co-operation of, at most, three factors: ontological chance, nomological determination, and agent-causation. The biological point of subjects, of centres of consciousness, of monads is to be an agent—or at least to participate indispensably in an agent—which exerts agent-causation for the good, the wellbeing of the subject's organism. Agent-causation, mysterious or not, at least stands a chance of existing, while event-causation does not exist. One of the presuppositions of philosophical reason itself is the Principle of Sufficient Cause: "Every event has a sufficient cause" (PSC). On the basis of PSC, physical event E must have a sufficient cause. Evidently, for describing the work of the agent in causing E there is no need whatsoever to speak of 'downward causation' or 'upward causation'. As should be clear by now, the very idea of upward and downward causation is a red herring.
