I think you are wrong in at least two ways. And I don’t think it’s a matter of interpretation.
1) If something is fundamental (say water molecules) then the thing that emerges from them (say waves) is emergent.
The water molecules are fundamental and the waves emergent. We don’t say the waves are fundamental.
2) Something is emergent if it has new properties that it’s constituents don’t have. Individual water molecules don’t have waves. Waves are something new that emerge from interacting water molecules. Anyhow this stuff is pretty well defined. We’ve already hashed this all out many posts ago. It’s not a matter of interpretation or argument as you seem to believe.
Your explanation in the context you deliver it is fine. The problem is that it isn't in the context I was under the impression we were working in. So the situation here with respect to our discussion has nothing to do with either of us not grasping concepts, definitions, and frameworks. It's more a case of talking past each other.
In this case I was under the impression that we were both looking at the idea that something is fundamental if it cannot be reduced to something other than itself, and whether or not that situation can coexist with something emergent. When we do that with waves made of some fundamental stuff composed of quanta, we find that every wave can be reduced to its fundamental stuff ( quanta ). Therefore in this specific type of situation, waves ( the emergent ) and the fundamental stuff ( quanta ) must exist
simultaneously.
There is no escaping this logic, though you are welcome to try. In order to prove it wrong all you would need to do is identify a situation of this exact same type, where waves
of some fundamental stuff ( quanta ) do not require the simultaneous existence of both
both fundamental stuff ( quanta )
and waves. Good luck with that. Even if we try to make the task easier by not requiring that the stuff ( quanta ) be fundamental, we still have the same problem. Try to make waves of water without water and waves existing simultaneously. It's not possible.
This provides a reason to think that perhaps we need to rethink the bottled and canned definitions of fundamentalness and emergence. Other participants like
@Michael Allen and
@smcder seem to be doing this as well. The alternative is to cite chapter and verse of someone else's thoughts, which can get really boring really fast ( for me ).
NOTE: When I say "this exact same type of situation", I mean situations where quanta constitute the makeup of something emergent without changing the intrinsic nature of such quanta in the process, not situations like particle-wave duality in phenomena such as light. That's a whole other context and subject.
Your logic for monism is good. However a resolution to the mbp does not follow from this.
I don't claim that I've solved the MBP. I claim that the MBP is not a valid "problem" in the first place, and therefore doesn't require "solving". For me, minds and bodies are simply part of a larger state of affairs in nature where different things coexist. I have no idea what the underlying substrate of nature is, or if there even is such a thing. Perhaps like a computer program it's all ultimately all ones and zeroes, but until we get to that level, we just have to accept that the program has different modules that from our perspective aren't reducible. They simply
are what they
are.
Nor does it follow that the mbp is no longer a problem for you.
Actually, it does follow that the MBP is not a problem ( for me ) because
that paradigm ( problem ) isn't
my paradigm ( problem ).
The mind might be identical with the body. Or the mind might be a fundamental physical field that exists in parallel to the body. The mind might information processing at the neural level. Or the mind might be a field emitted by neurons. Etc.
What new models have you proposed and defended in this thread? You were keen on Searle’s notion of consciousness oozing from biological neurons at one point. Then the idea of consciousness being fundamental quanta/field at one point. Am I missing something?
I was never "keen on Searle", but I respect him as a thinker. I'm more aligned with Chalmers ( who is working on a new book as we speak ), not to mention that he also makes an appearance in the
Ultimate Matrix collection ( which alone makes him super cool ). On the subject of what models I've proposed and defended, I don't work like that.
I use a process called critical thinking, where I evaluate ideas and arrive at what seems to be the most reasonable perspective given the evidence at hand and the reasoning applied to it. That perspective changes over time as new or better information and analysis presents itself. So I'm not wedded to any particular paradigm. I also don't pretend to have all the answers. I just follow the path where it leads.
With that being said, I need a break from this discussion. It's too draining and I need to focus my energy elsewhere for a while.
