Alex O’Connor, who describes himself as a former atheist/agnostic, appeared on Closer to Truth in a segment called “Why Emergence Cannot Explain Consciousness.” It is Part 2 in a series of 8.

“Emergence” means that consciousness somehow emerged from matter. He “argues that radical emergence may not exist at all. If that’s true, consciousness may not emerge from the brain but instead be fundamental to reality itself.” Materialism assumes, as bedrock, that consciousness comes from the brain. But doubt is beginning to emerge in various quarters as materialism begins to seem less and less plausible:

[1:50 min] Why Strong Emergence Cannot Explain Consciousness

O’Connor: I think as a sort of general premise, we can say that radical emergence of this kind doesn’t exist.

Kuhn: That’s generally defined in terms of weak emergence and strong emergence.

We can talk about weak emergence, that one molecule of H2O is not wet. And if you have a certain number of them and they become wet, wet is an emergent [property]. But we can understand that scientifically because you can see bonding angles. If you have zillions of
these molecules, it would create the property called wetness.

O’Connor: Exactly. So it depends what you mean by wetness. Right. In in the same way it depends what you mean by heat.

I think heat is a is an easier example to wrap your head around but it does the same thing. So an individual molecule is not hot, right? An individual atom is not hot. Uh it’s it’s sort of I mean heat is the product of the sort of excitation, the vibration of atoms, let’s say simply. And so if you put a bunch of them together, you get an object which is made up of vibrating atoms, which itself is hot. But atoms aren’t individually hot.

Well, it depends on what you mean because how do you define what hot is? If by hot you just mean the sort of physical concept of having like an average vibrational velocity of atoms, then actually an individual atom does have a temperature because you’ve just defined it in terms of his excitation. And again, you could put a bunch of vibrating atoms together and predict that you will end up with an object that is made up of lots of very excited vibrating atoms.

There’s nothing surprising there. There’s nothing emergent there. Nothing like new or radical has appeared.

Kuhn: Is wetness the same thing though? Because one molecule is not wet. You
don’t have a vibrational. You might be able to predict, if you have a certain large number of them, their angles together and how they flow together would create a sense of wetness. If you had a … perceptive ability to understand that…

The Mind–Body “Interaction Problem” Is Desperately Overhyped

O’Connor But that’s key, right? You need the perceptive ability, right? People still
want to say no, that there is something new with temperature: With a hot metal object there is
something there that the individual atoms don’t have.

What is the thing that is actually different? Well it’s the fact that, when I touch it or when I go near it, I feel this thing called heat, this sort of cumulative property. But crucially, that is something which arises in experience.

Essentially, O’Connor is now saying that consciousness cannot be explained away.

We will come back to this.