The author is pretty flippant. Philosophy has advanced a lot since Hume. It’s impossible to verify empirical evidence without a subject that has a built in model to intepret the data with (AB->AB->A? To quote Hume via Deleuze’s commentary on the repetition A->A->?? You must have a built in mental model to predict the next character in series). Furthermore we also know from Kant that there is “a priori transcendental knowledge” which is knowledge that has to be true in order for their to even be a subject in the first place. So no, it’s not correct that statements about the mind/body problem such as that the mind is “emergent” cannot be proven true or false, although admittedly a more precise definition of emergence is needed to say anything about it.
I have never really understood the debate about mind / body or material vs spirit. They are two sides of the same coin. At least to me that is how it appears. Your mind is your brain in operation. Physics is Nature in operation. Nature is Spirit (or information, if you prefer) in operation. Matter / energy is certainly an illusion or at least limited perception framed by mind because that is the only way we perceive it but that does not make it any less real. In the modern age we know the rules of physics pretty well but that does not mean that that is all that there is or that matter is something more real than thought. After all there is a strong case to be made that matter and energy in the physical universe is an emergent property of a larger mind.
As above so below.
I personally do not find these debates to be interesting or resolvable. It is really just like philosophical navel gazing.
Fundamentally what is real is what happens. Your mind may wholly arise from matter but that same matter arises from a network of causes preceding it. Are causes material or an arrangement of information?
The reason for the debate: Humans evolved to survive by using heuristics. Believing there are objects “out there” that are distinct from the self is an evolutionary adaptation. Believing in a material reality is adaptive for reproduction. But on the other hand, seeing that there is an illusion allows the exercise of power by those who understand over those who don’t. As a concrete example: someone who believes a can of Coca Cola is a “material object” that is seperate from the self has power exercised over them by marketers who understand it is an “ideal object” that exists within the self and can thus use material mediums to influence selfs for profit. Following that logic further leads to a revisitation of materialism through idealism ala Marx in German Ideology (it’s all in your mind, so try breathing underwater). Where material is formed through idealisms of power. Of course that itself is just another trick to gain power via appealing to the proles to give authority to managers. Etc etc etc…
Yes almost everything humans do is at its root attributable to the will to power evolution instilled in us. It is actually kind of comical when you see behind the curtain.
