On the Solvability of the Mind–Body Problem
Axiomathes August 2, 2019 J. Scheffel
Consciousness is argued to be both epistemologically and ontologically emergent, meaning it cannot be fully understood or reduced to simpler physical processes. By combining emergence theory with algorithmic information theory in a thought experiment involving a basic nonlinear process, the analysis shows that emergent properties can develop in a physical system. Applied to the brain's neural network, this suggests that a reductionist understanding of consciousness is impossible. Further combinatorial analysis based on quantum mechanical limits indicates that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to low-level phenomena, implying the mind-body problem lacks a reductionist solution.