No such thing as Ontological Emergence
The hard problem of consciousness necessitates a "consciousness must be explainable at the fundamental level" solution. There is no such thing as ontological emergence. There is no arbitrary threshold for which the vibration of atoms magically becomes conscious once ensconced within a brain. All macro objects reduce to micro objects. All emergent phenomena reduce to fundamental phenomena. Why should we make an exception for consciousness? Is consciousness the only thing that doesn't reduce to its building blocks? If we don't engage in special pleading, we are forced into the conclusion that fundamental particles are somehow generating the building blocks from which a complex experience is constructed. This means that fundamental particles have the ability to summon proto-consciousness. You don't get consciousness without this ability. We think, therefore consciousness is fundamental.
Emergent properties must be afforded by the fundamental structure.
Water
The liquidity of H2O is often viewed as an emergent property.
Weak emergence is when a system has some property that is not present in its parts. Strong emergence is when a system has some property that cannot be accounted for by its parts.
Is liquidity weakly or strongly emergent?
I argue that liquidity is weakly emergent, as it can be accounted for by its parts. Liquidity is a necessary outcome of its electrochemical structure.
The electronegativity of oxygen is 3.5, and the electronegativity of hydrogen is 2.1. Electronegativity is the strength of attraction an atomic nucleus has for electrons. Since oxygen has a higher strength then hydrogen, electrons have a bias to orbit the oxygen atom for a longer duration than they orbit the hydrogen atom. This results in the oxygen atom having a bias for having extra negative charge floating around, where as the hydrogens have a bias for being barren of negativity, resulting in a mere positive charge. This causes H2O to be bipolar, negative on one side, positive on another side.
This bipolar nature of H2O causes it to be attracted to itself, where all of the oxygens will search out the barren hydrogens. By being attracted to itself, it creates the phenomenon of liquidity.
One H2O molecule has the structure that allows for self-attraction, but given that there is no other H2O molecule, it cannot manifest this self-attraction to create liquidity. Hence, the structure for creating liquidity already exists at the fundamental level, and it weakly emerges from that structure.
Emergent Thresholds are Subjective and Arbitrary
Sand
"Sorites Paradox" or the "Paradox of the Heap."
1000 grains of sand form a heap.
But if you subtract 1 grain of sand from a heap, is it still a heap? Yes.
999 grains of sand form a heap.
But if you subtract 1 grain of sand from a heap, is it still a heap? Yes.
<repeat>
By repeating this process, eventually we will be forced to conclude that a single grain of sand should be considered a heap.
The paradox arises from the gradual removal of grains, leading to the question of when the heap becomes a non-heap. It highlights the challenge of defining clear boundaries in concepts that seem to lack precise distinctions.
A heap reduces to X grains of sand. At what threshold does # of grains of sand "emerge" into a heap? At the ontological layer, the universe doesn't give a damn about the number of grains of sand there are. We must realize that "heap" is a subjective concept based on the opinions of people. The "emergent threshold" is whatever we want it to be. This shows that the "emergence of the heap" is subjective and has nothing to do with "something new popping into existence". The heap can be explained by its parts via weak emergence.
Imagine grains of sand equal neurons. An animal with 999 neurons is considered "not conscious" but then an animal with 1000 neurons is considered "conscious". Do you see how this makes the threshold look foolish? We should be counting units of consciousness not drawing arbitrary lines in the sand.
*Ontology is just "the layer of existence", for a heap, ontologically, it is just a number of grains of sand. Heap = # grains of sand. That is what exists. The word "heap" doesn't add anything extra.
Everything Reduces
Suppose you accept reducing consciousness down to the level of the neuron, but perhaps you don't want to reduce it further? The question is - what makes neurons special? Neurons are just cells. Bacteria have cells. Neurons process electricity. Bacteria process electricity. Why not say all cells are conscious, not just neurons?
Then the question is why are cells special? Cells are just atoms. Cells process electricity, atoms process electricity. Why not say atoms are conscious?
It is grains of sand, all the way down.
Reductionism means "X is equivalent to all of its parts". If a heap is equivalent to all of its parts, then we have "reduced" the heap. For consciousness, some emergentists want to say "consciousness is not reducible" hence implying that there is a layer of stuff being added on top of the parts. For them, all the neurons are not good enough, there must be an extra magic juice that gives us the emergence of consciousness.
If this seems sketchy, if you think consciousness has no magic additive ingredient, then we have to reduce it to its parts. When we reduce it, it forces us to reduce it all the way down to the fundamental level - meaning consciousness (or the structures for consciousness) exists at the level of atoms.
Swarm Intelligence
Ant colonies
Bee hives
Schools of fish
Slime molds
Ant colonies can wage war on each other, can differentiate into workers, soldiers, princes and kings, can harvest food, and even cultivate fungi food sources by gathering leaves to feed the fungi which they later eat. They can construct complex anthills.
Are these phenomena weakly emergent or strongly emergent? Are these behaviors explainable by their parts, or is something additional coming into being in excess of the parts?
For ant warfare, perhaps we can reduce the emergence of this collective behavior to an algorithm:
Threat detection - threat triggers sensory information
Communication of threat - sensory information triggers chemical signaling
Trigger Aggressive Behavior - chemicals trigger neurons which trigger behavior
In swarm intelligence, the collective behavior of a group of agents emerges from the interactions and communication between individual agents following local rules. While the global behavior of the swarm may exhibit complex and adaptive patterns, researchers can often trace these patterns back to the interactions and behaviors of individual agents.
Because we can reduce swarm intelligence, it is weakly emergent.
If all complex things can all be reduced, then we can ultimately reduce everything to the fundamental layer.
For ant warfare, at the fundamental layer it reduces to:
Threat atoms emit photons which trigger sensory protein atoms (receptors) which electrify neuronal pathways with energized atoms.
Chemical signaling glands are stimulated by energized atoms and they release atoms for other ants to absorb.
When chemicals are absorbed they stimulate neuron pathways to send energy to muscles to move atoms such that all the linked atoms move towards the enemy.
If everything reduces to the fundamental layer, then explanations for consciousness must exist at the fundamental layer.