So my simple answer is I have no freaking clue

Yes. That's precisely correct. We don't have a clue

To say something is an "emergent phenomenon" is one part ignorance, one part explanation. The explanation is that the phenomenon supervenes on other systems. This isn't much as far as explanations go, but it is the best we can currently do and still be have an intellectually humble answer. It does allow us to say a few things, and offers a framework for further explanation. So it is more than mere ignorance.

There has to be some law or laws for supervenience.
If there is no causation of supervenience, then it's just a brute fact, correct?
But isn't the purpose of science to identify and explain laws?

Is it a scientific explanation to say that physical and "unphysical" processes supervene but not being able to identify or explain the applicable law?


(keep in mind I am just trying to formulate questions that relate to this topic. I haven't done a whole lot of leisure reading about this)

ant wrote:If there is no causation of supervenience, then it's just a brute fact, correct?
But isn't the purpose of science to identify and explain laws?

With something as complex as the human mind, it's like the weather. Full explanations will not arrive until our the processing power behind our models is dramatically increased. Until we have superdupercomputers capable of processing a model of every neuron and chemical reaction in the brain.

I'm not sure what you mean by causation of supervenience.

I've been reading a bit about this. For example research with folks who have had the two hemispheres of the brain severed indicate there may be differing selves in each half of the brain. This is not new - the existence of a network rather than a single "seat of the soul" supports ancient concepts that the sense of self is an illusion.

In relation to this topic, you know what might be very interesting? To review Antonio Damasio's groundbreaking Descarte's Error (1999) and then read about what he found deficient in his own work in Self Comes to Mind: Reconstructing the Conscious Brain (2012). Less ambitiously, we could read a review of the newer work:
http://www.academia.edu/1091390/_Just_l ... s_to_Mind_

Crick's theory stated that it is indeed something that is like a conductor for an orchestra. Consciousness is not in violin No. 2 or in oboe No. 1... it arises by combining (via perhaps dedicated area in the brain) the stored information and the sensory perceptions. So it may be a localised part of the brain, but it actually achieves / creates consciousness based on things that are not localised in some specific area.

And then last year some interesting experiment seems to largely confirm the conductor and its role in the brain, one report on it was in http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... brain.html