The poof objection goes something like this: An ID theorist claims that a given organic system (the bacterial flagellum perhaps) is irreducibly complex or that it displays functional complex specified information. In a sneering and condescending tone the materialist dismisses the claim, saying something like “Your claim amounts to nothing more than ‘Poof! the designer did it.’”
This is not the comeback proponents of the Theory of Evolution, what you seem to call "materialists", use. Instead, it is pointed out that 'irreducible complexity' has been thoroughly debunked through demonstrations and examples of separately evolving subcomponents of so-called irreducible mechanisms (like your aforementioned flagellum).
Additionally, the term 'emergent property' has nothing to do with a lazy attempt to dismiss the question of how a given ability developed. No evolutionary scientist has ever said "Sentience is unexplainable, so it must have just emerged out of nothingness". Feel free to cite a source if you have one. What this article is claiming is a totally incorrect definition of what an emergent property is.
An emergent property really is an ability derived from multiple systems working in concert, performing a task that none of the individual parts could do individually. A simple example would be the ability for you to jump. This is achieved through the cooperative use of muscles and bones. Muscles alone cannot do it - they would have no leverage. And bones certainly could not propel you into the air on their own. Together though, they can accomplish the job - an emergent property.
Now, looking at consciousness - the 'mind', if you will - it is derived from the combined efforts of many different process centers of the brain. These subcomponents, including memory, motor control, reasoning, recognition, and others, all have clear evolutionary histories. As they developed, the tendency for them to work together to enhance the chances of the host population's survival was favored by natural selection. As a result, the members of the population that improved on the 'emergent property' of consciousness were rewarded with a better chance of contributing to the next generation of the species. Apply this principle down through the millennia and it is no mystery how this emergent property developed.
No poofery required.
“. These subcomponents, including memory, motor control, reasoning, recognition, and others, all have clear evolutionary histories.”
Enlighen us on the evolutionary history of memory, for a start. Nothing complicated, just a brief description of how evolution produced memory.
“First off, this argument starts with a strawman:” [excerpt]Not necessarily.
Malarkey. There is not one shred if evidence that demonstrates that consciousness is somehow “generated” by the brain. We know that the brain is involved with consciousness, and that changes in the brain can affect consciousness, but materialists can’t show the brain’s “consciousness generator” in action — or even agree of a working definition of consciousness. In fact, there have been several medically documented cases of people with little or no brain tissue being fully conscious — an impossibility if the brain were nothing more than a consciousness machine.
==Instead, it is pointed out that ‘irreducible complexity’ has been thoroughly debunked through demonstrations and examples of separately evolving subcomponents of so-called irreducible mechanisms (like your aforementioned flagellum).
Actually, all of life is based on an irreducible structure, not just bacterial flagellums and blood clotting cascades.