As I have expalined in my article entitled "scientific contradictions in materialism" (you can find it in my site), consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property because this definition is inconsistent from a logical point of view; in fact, science has proved that the so-called emergent properties are only concepts used by man to describe in an approximated way the real physical processes, which consist uniquely of successions of microscopic elementary processes. The emergent properties quoted by materialists, are not real objective properties of the physical reality, but they are only subjective concepts; in other words, they are abstractions and ideas conceived to describe or classify, according to arbitrary criteria, a given succession of microscopic processes. The point is that the existence of a concept or idea presupposes the existence of consciousness; consciousness is a necessary preliminary condition for the existence of any concepts (including the so-called emergent properties). Therefore, the existence of any emergent property presupposes the existence of consciousness. It is then obvious that consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property of the physical reality, because the concept itself of emergent property presupposes the existence of consciousness. We have then a very direct logical contradiction. No concept which presupposes the existence of consciousness can be used to try to explain the existence of consciousness.

To summarize:

1) Emergent properties are only abstractions (that is ideas) and NOT real properties of the physical reality.

2) Abstractions imply the existence of consciousness.

From 1) and 2) follows that consciousness cannot be considered an emergent property.


Marco Biagini,

Ph.D. in Solid State Physics

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