More problems with knowing the 'fundamental nature' of X

Npg85 made a video in which he offered an alternative way of trying to distill the fundamental essence of the process. In his video, he used the example of a computer speaker to illustrate his thinking. So I'm going to use the same example to demonstrate why his suggestions are problematic.

Npg85 suggests that if we ignore the specifics of a process, then what we're left with is properties and mechanisms that are fundamental to that process. By specifics, he means quantitative measurements. So, in the speaker example, the length of the wire running to the electromagnet is a specific detail that can be freely varied; it will still work. The shape of the magnet is another specific detail, too. We could vary any of these things, and the process of a speaker playing a sound would still happen.

According to Npg85, these are the fundamentals we would be left with in the case of the computer speaker making sound. Here they are: we'd have electricity traveling down a wire to an electromagnet, which causes a piece of paper to move back and forth, creating a vibration.

So, my objection to this suggestion sort of centers around this issue of what are the specifics of a process. Npg85 suggests that the electromagnet is a fundamental part of the speaker, and our fuzzy intuitions about the word fundamental probably agree with him. Um, but he's attempting to present an objective way of getting to the fundamentals of a process, so our intuitions about that are of no use.

Npg85 doesn't consider the electromagnet to be a specific detail of the speaker; he thinks it's fundamental. But the problem is that we can deconstruct an electromagnet and consider it as a collection of specific details. If we look closely, we can consider the conductivity of the wire in an electromagnet as a specific detail. We could change that so that its conductivity was zero.

If we look at the properties of the electrons inside the iron core of the electromagnet, these are specific details too. So, in principle, by adjusting millions of this kind of specific detail, we could render the electromagnet completely non-functional. In fact, by freely varying specific details like these, most of the time, what would be left with couldn't be called an electromagnet anymore because it wouldn't work as one.

So, yeah, obviously the speaker wouldn't do its job without there being an electromagnet there. But the ability of a component to enable a whole, in this case the speaker, to do its job is not one of Npg85's requirements for making a component fundamental.

So, to summarize, Npg85's revised method for trying to get to the fundamentals of a process is still problematic because crucial patterns like the electromagnet are made up of specific details. If you freely vary these specific details, the crucial patterns dissolve, and the process no longer works.