ObsidianPhoenix,

I appreciate your thoughtful reply. (We are so used to total morons blowing into this forum that it takes us a little time to re-calibrate! Maybe a martini or some good scotch would help!)

It appears that there is, at least currently, a complete failure of the known natural laws to formulate a coherent answer to the problem. More importantly, there is serious debate going on in the relevant literature about at least the possibility that the entire current framework of scientific investigation, especially if limited only to a reductionist materialism, ultimately must fail to solve the mind/body problem and that such failure will require a fundamental revision of scientific understanding.

At least some scientists and philosophers put forth the idea that all of the scientific fields are ultimately reducible to physics. Do you fall into that camp? If not, where do you fall on the issue?

Keep in mind, sir, that everywhere on the frontier of knowledge scientists are wrestling with unsolved problems. This is where the sciences meet the unknown, not where the laws of nature are failing. That scientists might never solve a problem does not, in itself, imply a failure of natural principles. For example, if biologists and paleontologists concluded that it was impossible to explain how life actually arose on earth, that would not, in itself, imply a failure of natural principles. (We might be looking at an inability to recover lost history.)

Why must the sciences be restricted to reductionist thinking? The study of ecology, for instance, must integrate numerous factors to explain the big picture. It is a misconception to think that the sciences are wholly reductionist. The fact that life might be reducible to nothing but atoms is no more significant than saying that Shakespeare's greatest plays can be reduced to letters. Surely, no one would explain Shakespeare's plays by a statistical breakdown of letters used! An adequate explanation must use concepts that have no meaning at the lower, reductionist level of letters. This takes us into the subject of emergent properties, properties that don't exist below a certain level of complexity.

Temperature, viewed as an intrinsic property measured by a thermometer, is replaced by molecular velocities at the molecular level. A molecule has velocity and various modes of vibration, but if we overlooked those factors there would be nothing left that would correspond to temperature.

Hardness of rocks is another property that has no meaning at the molecular level. It only emerges when enough atoms or molecules are present to allow such a measurement. The physical properties of gold are another set of emergent properties that have no meaning at the level of one atom of gold. Color, softness, malleability, density, and melting point are meaningless properties until enough gold atoms have been collected.

A digital photograph is not a photograph at all at small scales. You see dots (or their equivalent) in several basic colors, not tiny pieces of a photo involving curved lines, subtle colors, etc. At what point do we get a picture? It all depends on how you define a picture.

The organization of a large ant colony is yet another emergent property. It is a meaningless concept at the level of individual ants. Ditto for national governments, which have no meaning at the level of individual people. If you looked at any one person, you would scarcely see an identifiable, tiny piece of national government.

There are many kinds of emergent properties. The one thing they have in common is that they have no meaning at some level of complexity. You can't explain Shakespeare by studying words! (But you can't have Shakespeare without words!) You need higher concepts that don't exist at the word level.

We can break the study of an ant colony down to individual ants, down to their anatomical parts, down to the cellular systems of those parts, down to the mechanisms within cells, down to organic chemistry, down to the atomic basis of chemistry, and down to the basic laws of nature applying to atomic physics. The thing you need to understand is that while this reductionist approach explains a great deal, and ultimately serves as a theoretical foundation, it is not the tool to use in studying emergent properties. It's not that the reductionist approach is false, but rather that it is a horrible and impractical way to study emergent properties. We need concepts that have no meaning at the lower levels of complexity.

The next big point is that emergent properties require neither a special creator nor special forces. They do not violate the reductionist foundation. The magnificent organization of an ant colony is consistent with the usual forces of physics discovered by reductionist analysis. A digital photo is consistent with the properties of ink and paper. It does not magically arise from a non-photo foundation!

My interpretation of the mind/body problem is that it mistakenly views an emergent property (consciousness, thought) as requiring a fundamental break with the "materialistic" natural principles. Based on a growing body of evidence, I just don't see the need to make such an extreme leap. Yes, we have a mystery, but so what? The fun of science is digging into these mysteries and, based on its track record, science has been spectacularly successful! Therefore, we shouldn't sell it short. An unsolved mystery (and this is a very complex area) does not mean that science has collapsed! I don't see any fundamental roadblock that requires us to bail out and start looking for some new, weird force. From my perspective, the mind-body problem doesn't exist!

Slight digression here. It can be skipped if it is 2am and you are in a hurry to get to bed!

Strictly speaking, natural principles (natural laws) are purely descriptive. We carefully observe how reality works and summarize our results mathematically as various principles. Unfortunately, mathematics can act as a shoehorn to falsely suggest that infinite precision is involved. Just because we have the formula F = ma, derived from studies of, say, 9 decimal places, doesn't mean that we can safely push it to 100 decimal places!

A principle derived from careful and consistent observation doesn't depend on understanding, so it cannot fall due to misunderstanding. Even though Newtonian mechanics have been succeeded by Einstein's relativity, Newton's formulas (within appropriate ranges) are still valid and still used to build great bridges and aircraft carriers. They still apply to space flight.

It's just that Einstein's better understanding of reality allows us to formulate those principles a bit more accurately. That means we can apply them over a greater range of situations, such as building a GPS system.

Two mistakes need to be avoided. First, we must dispense with the idea that future breakthroughs in science will invalidate our natural laws. (Barring some fundamental change in the universe, they would still be valid within their appropriate ranges and conditions.) Secondly, we should keep in mind that each principle was plucked from observations made under certain conditions and within specific ranges of accuracy. One cannot simply assume that those principles will apply beyond those boundaries.

@ObsidianPhoenix
I will check it out.

Welcome Mr. Taikonaut!

I couldn't agree more!