Cogito Ergo Sum

[inocente]

In responding to my point about ‘emergent properties’, you brought up properties that aren’t reducible to their basic parts (atoms) alone, but I’m referring to properties that aren’t reducible to atoms at all. In other words, emergence involves being reducible to parts, but only to higher level parts of a system and not the basic level parts (atoms). A simple example would be water, which has the property of being able to absorb heat (extinguish a fire) but yet it’s individual parts, hydrogen and oxygen, do not have this property at all, and more interestingly, these parts have properties that are contrary to water, i.e. hydrogen and oxygen spark and feed fires. An even better example is the mind or consciousness, where you truly have something that is greater than its parts in that the mind can control the behavior of it’s parts (the brain). I’m sure you can recall our conversation on self-directed neuroplasticity.

Emergence isn’t about appealing to anything nonphysical although it can involve that. It can also refer to emergent physical properties and that’s how scientists use the concept for the most part.

Your explanation of emergence is highly flawed. You cannot say “you truly have something that is greater than its parts” as if there is another kind of emergence which is not truly greater.

An emergent property of a system is one which cannot be reduced to properties of any component of the system. It cannot be reduced to thinking substance, magic, the supernatural, the natural, or any other kind of component. The entire point is that emergent properties cannot be found in components, but instead emerge from the system as a whole, either as novelties or as unpredictable artifacts.

Btw the line attributed to Aristotle is “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.

Your response does not answer my point about your inconsistency of rejecting substance dualism because of the INTERACTION problem, while believing in a God that is nonphysical and interacts with a physical universe.

You missed the point that according to Descartes your purported thinking substance was created by God. It cannot be as God. If it was the same substance as God then it could reach into anyone and do anything, and then you would be God.

Btw it’s good to see you finally accepted you have the insurmountable interaction problem. Whose theory of substance dualism are you following, Descartes, another, or your own?

 

[inocente]

Okay. Let me amend myself. NONE of what you said in response escapes the problems I highlighted.

A lesson in closed versus open-ended questions for you.

I understand you to either be saying something shatteringly profound that has been missed by every neuroscientist and all physicalist philosophers, and which will bring you a Nobel Prize.

Or else that you’re not. By analogy, a computer instruction can set a data field false, but the instruction itself happened, so it can’t have a property of being true or false. The instruction is not the object of the instruction, and a thought not the object of the thought.

If you’re espousing an existing theory, please cite a link or two.

 

[Aloysium]

Like “evolution”, “emergent” is starting to grate on my nerves.
Communication is difficult enough without such words that have subtle differences in the way they are understood.

Emergent properties of a system differ from those of its constituent parts.

Some would consider that they emerge from the parts as a result of their interaction.
This is easy to imagine given that the universe was created in a step-wise fashion, constructed as a hierarchy of levels from the microscopic to the macroscopic, from the simple to the complexity of mankind.

I am asserting that God creates persons.
That is the system - the person.
The person is a being made up of constituent parts derived from the world - material, psychological and spiritual.
As persons, we transform what is external into ourselves.
Everything we are is from what is other.
Every single molecule within myself was a part of something else.
The ideas we posses and the words we use to describe them are learned.
Our very lives, free will, what wisdom we possess, and understanding are given from the Spirit - God.
The person is fundamental.
Emergent properties emerge from that basic reality, which governs everything within it, utilizing their properties to fulfil the purpose of its existence - to return to its maker, to know love.
Through our free will we execute the final part, becoming who we want to be from everything we have been given.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

An emergent property of a system is one which cannot be reduced to properties of any component of the system. It cannot be reduced to thinking substance, magic, the supernatural, the natural, or any other kind of component. The entire point is that emergent properties cannot be found in components, but instead emerge from the system as a whole, either as novelties or as unpredictable artifacts.

The only part of your statement that I question is the part I changed to red font. The red font part is irrelevant to my point since my view doesn’t involve reducing anything, but rather it involves something emerging from components. The components of the mind are PHYSICAL, not magical. From the physical (neural structure/function), a nonphysical mind emerged. You haven’t said anything that refutes my view.

You missed the point that according to Descartes your purported thinking substance was created by God. It cannot be as God. If it was the same substance as God then it could reach into anyone and do anything, and then you would be God.

Under my view, the mind is not a separate entity nor substance. The mind is a product of the brain.

Btw it’s good to see you finally accepted you have the insurmountable interaction problem. Whose theory of substance dualism are you following, Descartes, another, or your own?

You keep dodging your INCONSISTENT standard of accepting a nonphysical God interacting with a PHYSICAL universe while denying substance dualism for the same interaction problem. It was you that said the following,

From post #81…
“Just like the Church, I do not run away from logical issues.** If individuals want to sell me on substance dualism, they have yet to explain the fundamental logical issue of how their thinking substance is supposed to interact with physical substance**”

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Like “evolution”, “emergent” is starting to grate on my nerves.
Communication is difficult enough without such words that have subtle differences in the way they are understood.

Emergent properties of a system differ from those of its constituent parts.

Some would consider that they emerge from the parts as a result of their interaction.
This is easy to imagine given that the universe was created in a step-wise fashion, constructed as a hierarchy of levels from the microscopic to the macroscopic, from the simple to the complexity of mankind.

People often look at emergence being part of an explanation that progresses in some linear step-wise direction, and emergence being at the higher level steps. I don’t agree with that view of emergence, nor would I consider that significant. Instead of progressing in some step-wise motion, emergence would involves gaps or leaps between levels. However, this does not mean there has to be a gap in knowledge, it would just mean that we could not track the progression in a step-wise way at the point that we suspect the novel property came into play. Here are some mechanisms for emergence:

• The step-wise progression can be broken when an outside factor comes into play, for instance, if factors in the environment contribute to consciousness, as well.
• This can also happen when different systems interact with each other.
• A variable that contributes to causation may only come into play at a later stage and therefore isn’t part of the basic components.
• Each level (not just the basic level) may yield it’s own cause and effect mechanisms.

I’m sure there are various other mechanisms for emergence that are knowable, but just not in a linear or step-wise way. We should also consider that basic components, like neurons, may play a causal role to a certain point, and beyond that they just serve as a supporting or foundational role. That’s how I view neurons in relation to consciousness, that is, beyond just being a foundation, they have not been shown to account for consciousness in any causal way - at best we have CORRELATION. I can get into strong emergence and explain how properties at higher levels can even control the lower level properties, i.e. downward causation, but that’s a different topic.

I am asserting that God creates persons.
That is the system - the person.
The person is a being made up of constituent parts derived from the world - material, psychological and spiritual.
As persons, we transform what is external into ourselves.
Everything we are is from what is other.
Every single molecule within myself was a part of something else.
The ideas we posses and the words we use to describe them are learned.
Our very lives, free will, what wisdom we possess, and understanding are given from the Spirit - God.
The person is fundamental.
Emergent properties emerge from that basic reality, which governs everything within it, utilizing their properties to fulfil the purpose of its existence - to return to its maker, to know love.
Through our free will we execute the final part, becoming who we want to be from everything we have been given.

I haven’t seen you acknowledge all of the scientific evidence showing that the mind depends on the brain. Without factoring this in, your point is incomplete, at best. I would even say most of your claims are unproven.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . I haven’t seen you acknowledge all of the scientific evidence showing that the mind depends on the brain. Without factoring this in, your point is incomplete, at best. I would even say most of your claims are unproven.

You are not going to see it because no such evidence exists. The concept of the mind depending on the brain emerges from the dichotomy of subject and object where the material is understood to be the fundamental reality. Even keeping such a dichotomy, it is clear that learning affects neural anatomy and physiology. But, again I am asserting that what is primary is the person and that the physical, psychological and spiritual are merely intellectual lenses by which we can grasp the structure and processes that constitute the totality of that unified system.

You may wish to contemplate how it is that we can come to know the knower. What proof can there be for he who creates proofs, who understands?

To add more to what lacks proof is a view that sees the person as being relational in nature, ultimately related to God, who is perfect Relationality - Love, and related to everything, intellectually having the form of knower-knowing-known, where it becomes one when knowledge is compassion.

 

[inocente]

The only part of your statement that I question is the part I changed to red font. The red font part is irrelevant to my point since my view doesn’t involve reducing anything, but rather it involves something emerging from components. The components of the mind are PHYSICAL, not magical. From the physical (neural structure/function), a nonphysical mind emerged. You haven’t said anything that refutes my view.

I’m not sure what you view is now. You keep saying things like “something emerging from components” but emergence is where a system has behavior not present in components.

*Under my view, the mind is not a separate entity nor substance. The mind is a product of the brain. *

I thought you’ve been saying the mind could be a product of immaterial substance. Not sure what you’re claiming now. Do we agree that your mind cannot exist without a body?

*You keep dodging your INCONSISTENT standard of accepting a nonphysical God interacting with a PHYSICAL universe while denying substance dualism for the same interaction problem. It was you that said the following,

From post #81*…
“Just like the Church, I do not run away from logical issues.** If individuals want to sell me on substance dualism, they have yet to explain the fundamental logical issue of how their thinking substance is supposed to interact** with physical substance”

You omitted to quote my answer then accused me of dodging, and used all caps, bold font and red ink, while you didn’t answer my question. Some might see that as diversionary tactics. Perish the thought.

If you’re claiming your mind can exist without a body then your claim fails unless you can explain how it interacts with the physical world. That’s your issue and my beliefs can’t make your issue go away.

If on the other hand you’re saying that your mind cannot exist outside a body then I’m not sure why you’re arguing this point.

Either way, it’s off-topic and as I answered, God is not made of a preexisting substance, since if he was, he wouldn’t be God.

 

[inocente]

Like “evolution”, “emergent” is starting to grate on my nerves.
Communication is difficult enough without such words that have subtle differences in the way they are understood.

Emergent properties of a system differ from those of its constituent parts.

Some would consider that they emerge from the parts as a result of their interaction.
This is easy to imagine given that the universe was created in a step-wise fashion, constructed as a hierarchy of levels from the microscopic to the macroscopic, from the simple to the complexity of mankind.

I am asserting that God creates persons.
That is the system - the person.
The person is a being made up of constituent parts derived from the world - material, psychological and spiritual.
As persons, we transform what is external into ourselves.
Everything we are is from what is other.
Every single molecule within myself was a part of something else.
The ideas we posses and the words we use to describe them are learned.
Our very lives, free will, what wisdom we possess, and understanding are given from the Spirit - God.
The person is fundamental.
Emergent properties emerge from that basic reality, which governs everything within it, utilizing their properties to fulfil the purpose of its existence - to return to its maker, to know love.
Through our free will we execute the final part, becoming who we want to be from everything we have been given.

Emergentism is a sort of anti-reductionism - the idea that a system can have behaviors/properties which can’t be reduced to components.

The notion is of systems which are composed of components, which are in turn are components of higher level systems - such as physics → chemistry → biology. As such it’s a categorization scheme for knowledge, a way of breaking down complexities into layers.

The metaphysical question is whether those layers exist in an objective reality. If they do then reality really is layered, and corresponds to our categories, and we discover those categories. But it seems more likely that our layers are just a useful way for us to understand the world, and that aliens or other cultures could choose other layering schemes or even not use any categories.

Applied to the mind, emergentism is probably a useful technique for building what will be a complex explanation (some kind of layering seems inevitable to make sense of it), but whether those layers and components exist objectively is another question. If they do then there are further metaphysical questions such as whether all possible minds in all possible worlds necessarily have the same layers.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . The notion is of systems which are composed of components, which are in turn are components of higher level systems - such as physics → chemistry → biology. As such it’s a categorization scheme for knowledge, a way of breaking down complexities into layers.

The metaphysical question is whether those layers exist in an objective reality. If they do then reality really is layered, and corresponds to our categories, and we discover those categories. But it seems more likely that our layers are just a useful way for us to understand the world, and that aliens or other cultures could choose other layering schemes or even not use any categories. . .

It does help understand current tensions involving North Korea to have some knowledge of how thermonuclear devices work.
However, one gets a clearer picture knowing something of human nature, history and world politics.
I can’t see anyone asserting that Kim Jong-un is anything but objectively real.
It would do one no good to know him at a sub molecular, molecular, or cellular level.
Even brain functioning would not help much; nowhere close at least to knowing something of his upbringing, family dynamics and social history.
I would say that although not measurable or as easily studied empirically, the various layers of existence are as, and perhaps more real than the material constituents that are necessary for their taking place in time and space and which we know very darkly, at a great distance, primarily through mathematics.

BTW, considerations as to how an alien might see things usually leaves one with an alienated view of reality.

 

[inocente]

It does help understand current tensions involving North Korea to have some knowledge of how thermonuclear devices work.
However, one gets a clearer picture knowing something of human nature, history and world politics.
I can’t see anyone asserting that Kim Jong-un is anything but objectively real.
It would do one no good to know him at a sub molecular, molecular, or cellular level.
Even brain functioning would not help much; nowhere close at least to knowing something of his upbringing, family dynamics and social history.
I would say that although not measurable or as easily studied empirically, the various layers of existence are as, and perhaps more real than the material constituents that are necessary for their taking place in time and space and which we know very darkly, at a great distance, primarily through mathematics.

BTW, considerations as to how an alien might see things usually leaves one with an alienated view of reality.

You might believe there are real layers of existence, but I think it’s arguable whether an alien would make the same divisions, or make divisions at all. Our cognition evolved to aid survival in complex environments, and the way it divides up reality may in part just be how it makes sense of the world. Aliens might not have branches of philosophy such as emergentism and reductionism. After all, aliens would be alien.

But such metaphysical questions can’t really be answered unless and until we meet with aliens. It isn’t knowledge, it can’t help people with disorders or injuries, it can’t help us understand ourselves.

Although agreed, whether it’s possible to understand Trump’s hairdo is another ball game.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . But such metaphysical questions can’t really be answered unless and until we meet with aliens. It isn’t knowledge, it can’t help people with disorders or injuries, it can’t help us understand ourselves.

Although agreed, whether it’s possible to understand Trump’s hairdo is another ball game.

There is an explanation.

To tie this all together :

I recall the docudrama Men In Black I, which revealed that space aliens were masquerading as celebrities and communicating though the tabloids.

In the world of alternate facts, two of them are causing quite a bit of concern.

View attachment 23907 View attachment 23906

The weird thing is that of what comes out of these heads is more odd than what sits on top of them.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

I’m not sure what you view is now. You keep saying things like “something emerging from components” but emergence is where a system has behavior not present in components.

I would specify that emergent behavior or properties do not arise from the basic or lower level components but rather they arise from higher level components. In other words, emergent properties are reducible to the higher level components/interactions of a system, but not the basic or lower level components.

I thought you’ve been saying the mind could be a product of immaterial substance. Not sure what you’re claiming now.

I consider the mind to be a product of the brain because it depends on it to exist and function so the mind can’t be said to be a separate entity or substance. Based on my explanation on emergentism earlier in this post, it would probably be easier for me to say that consciousness is an emergent physical property, but then that avoids all of the evidence about it being nonphysical. While being nonphysical, we can at least say that it depends on conditions at the higher levels of organization/interactions.

Do we agree that your mind cannot exist without a body?

I don’t accept that the mind can exist without the body but I am open to the idea, and would accept it if I ever come across some good evidence.

You omitted to quote my answer then accused me of dodging, and used all caps, bold font and red ink, while you didn’t answer my question. Some might see that as diversionary tactics. Perish the thought.

I don’t claim that my view is without problems, but I do believe that it best accounts for all of the good reasons/evidence from both sides of the issue. Under my view, which involves downward causation, solving the problem of interaction seems very doable since all we’d have to do is observe how the mind can shape and control the brain, and from that direction of interaction we can derive separate laws they may stand for laws of a nonphysical properties, etc.

So far you’ve offered nothing. You claim to be a Christian but yet you don’t even realize the glaring inconsistency in accepting your God while denying substance dualism. Interestingly, you also claimed in post #95 that Descartes’, “I think, therefore I am” point was untenable. To the contrary, it just happens to be the strongest point that we can be certain of. We can never deny that we have experience, because by contemplating that very issue, you’re engaging in what you’re denying.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Emergentism is a sort of anti-reductionism - the idea that a system can have behaviors/properties which can’t be reduced to components.

Reductionists tend to presume that the behavior of a system is determined by it’s lower level components. In other words, the behavior of the whole can be understood by knowing the behavior of the parts. Neuroscientists would probably start at the level of neurons and brain chemistry to say that all behavior is determined by such factors. As you mentioned, emergence is a view that goes against reductionism, in that it presumes that there are different layers of structure in a system, and that also some properties of higher level structure aren’t part of the lower level components.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Neuroscientists would probably start at the level of neurons and brain chemistry to say that all behavior is determined by such factors. . .

I don’t think so. If anyone would make such a statement, I’m sure any psychiatrist who has not lost his or her mind, would counter that mental activity changes in the brain. Cognitive behaviour therapy works because a rational approach to one’s problems changes a person’s way of looking at things; accompanying this are cerebral changes. At the opposite extreme, post-traumatic stress disorder is related to psychological trauma which results in major deleterious changes to the brain’s functioning and structure, which go along with emotional and cognitive instablity. Actually, any learning changes the brain. In other words, it is all about the person who is a body-spirit unity, changing and becoming him/herself as a whole.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

I don’t think so. If anyone would make such a statement, I’m sure any psychiatrist who has not lost his or her mind, would counter that mental activity changes in the brain. Cognitive behaviour therapy works because a rational approach to one’s problems changes a person’s way of looking at things; accompanying this are cerebral changes. At the opposite extreme, post-traumatic stress disorder is related to psychological trauma which results in major deleterious changes to the brain’s functioning and structure, which go along with emotional and cognitive instablity. Actually, any learning changes the brain. In other words, it is all about the person who is a body-spirit unity, changing and becoming him/herself as a whole.

Good points. I’ve encountered this point about behavior and learning a lot whenever I present my argument from self-directed neuroplasticity. While some behavior may be mostly rooted in non-biological factors (environment, psychological), however, other behaviors are strongly rooted in biology. This is why psychiatrists and psychologists tend not to treat neurobiological based disorders, like schizophrenia and OCD with cognitive-based therapies, but instead rely on drug therapy.

Paragraph break for easier reading…

Learning, a mental process, is not supposed to be able to alter biologically rooted behaviors, like the disorders I mentioned, or even some of the other ordinary behavior like sexual orientation. We rarely if ever hear about someone learning their way out of homosexuality no matter how much theology and cognitive therapy they try on the matter. However, there is evidence that’s beginning to emerge that mental activity (cognitive therapy/mental imagery and exposure) can alter even biologically rooted behaviors. If this can be done theoretically for all behaviors, using our minds, then what would be left for the brain to control? It may as well function as a medium at that point. And another important point is about the mind being able to change anything in the brain in the first place - and not just simple neurons firing or rewiring, but changing towards a desired outcome. This is what I would argue validates downward or top-down causation.

 

[inocente]

There is an explanation.

To tie this all together :

I recall the docudrama Men In Black I, which revealed that space aliens were masquerading as celebrities and communicating though the tabloids.

In the world of alternate facts, two of them are causing quite a bit of concern.

View attachment 23907 View attachment 23906

The weird thing is that of what comes out of these heads is more odd than what sits on top of them.

Earthling

 

[inocente]

I would specify that emergent behavior or properties do not arise from the basic or lower level components but rather they arise from higher level components. In other words, emergent properties are reducible to the higher level components/interactions of a system, but not the basic or lower level components.

Emergent properties are not reducible. That’s why they’re called emergent. Not to put too fine a point on it, they emerge.

I consider the mind to be a product of the brain because it depends on it to exist and function so the mind can’t be said to be a separate entity or substance. Based on my explanation on emergentism earlier in this post, it would probably be easier for me to say that consciousness is an emergent physical property, but then that avoids all of the evidence about it being nonphysical. While being nonphysical, we can at least say that it depends on conditions at the higher levels of organization/interactions.

People use words like physical to mean different things. I guess you could say your mind is natural (as in the mind is what the brain does), as opposed to supernatural.

I don’t accept that the mind can exist without the body but I am open to the idea, and would accept it if I ever come across some good evidence.

Then you’re back to Descartes substance dualism.

I don’t claim that my view is without problems, but I do believe that it best accounts for all of the good reasons/evidence from both sides of the issue. Under my view, which involves downward causation, solving the problem of interaction seems very doable since all we’d have to do is observe how the mind can shape and control the brain, and from that direction of interaction we can derive separate laws they may stand for laws of a nonphysical properties, etc.

I think up to around 25 years ago, philosophers could debate how the mind works, but now that brain scans are so commonplace, they can only really speculate on the latest neuroscience. And with the pace of the science, all speculations probably have a very limited shelf-life.

So far you’ve offered nothing. You claim to be a Christian but yet you don’t even realize the glaring inconsistency in accepting your God while denying substance dualism. Interestingly, you also claimed in post #95 that Descartes’, “I think, therefore I am” point was untenable. To the contrary, it just happens to be the strongest point that we can be certain of. We can never deny that we have experience, because by contemplating that very issue, you’re engaging in what you’re denying.

You should read the philosophers who came after Descartes. They tear apart your certainty. There are lots of problems with cogito ergo sum. For instance, Descartes’ ‘I’ only exists for the duration of a thought, and the next thought could be a different ‘I’. Each ‘I’ might only exist for the duration of one thought and then disappear. He tried really hard to be the uber skeptic, but he forgot he just assumes continuity. <Doh!>

Reductionists tend to presume that the behavior of a system is determined by it’s lower level components. In other words, the behavior of the whole can be understood by knowing the behavior of the parts. Neuroscientists would probably start at the level of neurons and brain chemistry to say that all behavior is determined by such factors. As you mentioned, emergence is a view that goes against reductionism, in that it presumes that there are different layers of structure in a system, and that also some properties of higher level structure aren’t part of the lower level components.

Reductionism and emergentism are schools of philosophy, not of science. I’d imagine all scientists use both top-down and bottom-up explanations as applicable. After all the phenomena and the empirical evidence are the same either way.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Emergent properties are not reducible. That’s why they’re called emergent. Not to put too fine a point on it, they emerge.

Your understanding of ‘emergence’ wouldn’t be viable to the scientific process. Without having causative link and/or mechanism between the components (upper level components in my case) and the emergent property, then you’re dealing with magic or the supernatural, at best. You may as well say that wings can emerge from fish, and when asked how, just say the word emergence… anything can emerge out of anything for any unknown reason. At least with my view, there is an established connection between the brain and mind, the two interact, one of the two appears to be nonphysical, etc.

Then you’re back to Descartes substance dualism.

I clearly stated that I DON’T accept that the mind can exist without the body. My statement is not compatible with substance dualism.

You should read the philosophers who came after Descartes. They tear apart your certainty. There are lots of problems with cogito ergo sum. For instance, Descartes’ ‘I’ only exists for the duration of a thought, and the next thought could be a different ‘I’. Each ‘I’ might only exist for the duration of one thought and then disappear. He tried really hard to be the uber skeptic, but he forgot he just assumes continuity. <Doh!>

Is that really the best objection that you can find? I can grant you that it is an objection, but you should also realize that being an objection doesn’t automatically make Descartes’ point “untenable” unless the objection has some validity to it. Are you saying that only thoughts about “I” count towards existence? Clearly, any and all thoughts would count as a thought, and thinking on any matter as we always do, whether consciously or not, count as existing.

Reductionism and emergentism are schools of philosophy, not of science. I’d imagine all scientists use both top-down and bottom-up explanations as applicable. After all the phenomena and the empirical evidence are the same either way.

I agree. Both reductionism and emergentism can coexist, even within the same system.

 

[ynotzap]

Agnostic Boy: It is impossible for something greater to emerge from something lesser, such as materialistic evolution to produce something non-material or spiritual as the soul of man, or rational life from sentient life. The collection of smaller entities can be greater in number or quantity, but not in quality, or substance. This violates the self-evident principle of “a thing can not give what it does not have” If immaterial substance could be examined empirically it would have been discovered by examining the brain, no such evidence. It is also a self-evident principle that the “the whole is equal to the sum of it’s parts”, and what ever emerges from the lesser parts necessarily belong to the whole, not a new substance.

The thing the soul through it’s power of intelligence is first aware of is “that a thing is” it’s existence, and not" what a thing is" it’s essence. Through the senses the intellect abstracts the idea from the physical objective world, the soul through these ideas comes "reflectively"to the knowledge of itself, it’s own existence. This is necessary because of the union of the co-principles of matter and spiritual soul. The nature of man is this union of matter and spirit. If man was pure spirit he wouldn’t need to abstract the “idea” from the material world, spirit would know spirit.

If there is not resort to the metaphysical at it’s deepest level, ontology,being qua being, you will never transcend from the physical to the immaterial or spiritual, or to the reality of a spiritual soul You can not answer the problem by empirical methods alone. What ever emerges from the physical is physical in nature.
There is also evidence of spiritual phenomenon, I have experienced this myself, there is much more evidence of this concerning our Christian Catholic Faith.

 

[inocente]

Your understanding of ‘emergence’ wouldn’t be viable to the scientific process. Without having causative link and/or mechanism between the components (upper level components in my case) and the emergent property, then you’re dealing with magic or the supernatural, at best. You may as well say that wings can emerge from fish, and when asked how, just say the word emergence… anything can emerge out of anything for any unknown reason. At least with my view, there is an established connection between the brain and mind, the two interact, one of the two appears to be nonphysical, etc.

:ehh:

“We might roughly characterize the shared meaning thus: emergent entities (properties or substances) ‘arise’ out of more fundamental entities and yet are ‘novel’ or ‘irreducible’ with respect to them.” - plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/

Is that really the best objection that you can find? I can grant you that it is an objection, but you should also realize that being an objection doesn’t automatically make Descartes’ point “untenable” unless the objection has some validity to it. Are you saying that only thoughts about “I” count towards existence? Clearly, any and all thoughts would count as a thought, and thinking on any matter as we always do, whether consciously or not, count as existing.

As I said, read the philosophers who came after Descartes. It’s they who put the boot in on Descartes, I just repeated one of their many objections.