Do mental properties emerge as novel properties of complex material systems? How is this question altered when "emerge" is removed from the formulation? And so on.

Are mental properties properties of complex material systems?

Are mental properties complex material systems?

Is mentality--or are mental processes--complex material systems?

Is mentality material? A system? Is mentality mentality, as in mentality qua mentality? Or do we mean something else by "mentality"?

Could mentality be a concept?  And, if so, what kind of a concept is it? And how is this concept employed? 

How should--or how could--we explain "mentality" to a child? For the purposes of our investigation, let's say he or she is an intelligent child ten years old.  If such an exercise proves rewarding, consider a series of children decreasing in age.  At what points do our strategies for explaining mentality alter, and how so?

If the child was trans or identified as an animal, how would this alter our strategies for explanation?

Imagine a far away planet with a complex civilization, and the beings there do not possess mentality. Contrast this with a distant planet with a civilization whose member beings do possess mentality.

More in this vein? Click HERE for a note on methodology.