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Full Idea
If emergentism is correct about anything, it is more likely to be correct about qualia than about anything else.
Clarification
Meaning all other mental events are predictable
Gist of Idea
The only mental property that might be emergent is that of qualia
Source
Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §4 p.103)
Book Ref
Kim,Jaegwon: 'Mind in the Physical World' [MIT 2000], p.102
A Reaction
I'm puzzled by a view that says that nearly all of the mind is reducible, but one tiny aspect of it is 'emergent'. What sort of ontology is envisaged by that?
| 22741 | The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 5787 | There is non-event causation between mind and brain, as between a table and its solidity [Searle] |
| 2313 | Emergentism says there is no explanation for a supervenient property [Kim] |
| 2328 | The only mental property that might be emergent is that of qualia [Kim] |
| 4084 | Non-reductive physicalism seeks an explanation of supervenience, but emergentists accept it as basic [Crane] |
| 2405 | Perhaps consciousness is physically based, but not logically required by that base [Chalmers] |
| 6148 | Human organisms can exercise downward causation [Merricks] |
| 14911 | Science is opposed to downward causation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| 14556 | Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum] |