What the God debate is really about

[Mudhammam]

Firstly, “emergence” serves as a term of art that many call upon. It tends to gloss over how and why a property actually manifests and/or the nature of the properties claimed to emerge.

Agreed. This is a valid criticism. As long as we don't assume that "emergence" serves as a totally satisfactory explanation of anything, I generally think the word is similar to "effect." Though we don't know every detail of how exactly all instances of emergence in nature occurs, it's reasonable to say based on the existing evidence that certain sensual perceptions or modes of thinking "emerge" from specific chemical reactions in different regions of the brain.

Secondly, what exactly does “self-organizing” mean? Similar to above, does the whole act upon the parts OR do the parts have built-in features pointing to specific ends OR both OR something else entirely.

Hope this clarifies some: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-orga...riticality

Anyone can see that reality has two fundamental features: sensible objects and knowing subjects. I take it as self-evident that some things can abide in reality independent of a knowing subject’s observation. I it as self-evident that actual knowing subjects are necessary in order for awareness to manifest.
The OP tacitly assumes that reductive monisms are the only available options to reconcile these two features of reality. Asserting that monism, physical or otherwise, MUST be the case shows the faith-based prejudice of people committed to radical skepticism and/or subjectivism. While philosophical thinking has a natural tendency toward the elegance of monism, reasoning along these lines ends up either asserting a world in which consciousness has no place or a world hinging entirely on mental phenomena, i.e. “No matter, never mind.” Since both conclusions are strongly counter-intuitive and ultimately incoherent, I say some form of dualism should, for now, be the default position despite the prejudice against it.

To me, insisting that everything be objectively real, blatantly disregards things that are subjectively real.

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No one can "observe" an idea.

Wrong. The person having the idea does.

I honestly just haven't found any arguments for dualism helpful in solving or explaining anything.