On 7/3/2011 7:45 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Jul 3, 2011, at 4:46 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 7/3/2011 8:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:35 AM, selva kumar <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Jason Resch
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:23 AM, selva kumar
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Is consciousness causally effective ?
If it is not causally effective, then you must explain what
caused the word "consciousness" to enter our lexicon and
what caused the field of pihlosophy of mind, and all the
various books on the subject of consciousness. The dirty
secret of epiphenominalism (the theory that consciousness is
casually inert) is that if it were a true theory, the theory
of epiphenominalism would be entirely private and
unsharable. The fact that a theory was generated and shared
to explain consciousness proves consciousness has effects.
Even the fact that we are discussing it now in this thread
can be taken as evidence of its causal effects.
Jason
Then by your definition..Consciousness is our ability to think ?
No, my point is that if you are thinking about consciousness, then
what else could it have been but consciousness that caused you to
think about it?
That would be the material cause in Aristotles sense. But material
causes don't form causal chains.
Brent
If consciousness is causually inert then history would be the same
even if it were abolished throughout the universe.
To me it seems absurd that we would be endlessly debating some
nonexistent thing which none of us has ever experienced, yet that is
exactly the conclusion that comes from assuming consciousness has no
effects.
You are making a leap of inference from causally inert to nonexistent.
Mathematics is causally inert. Yet it's existence is debatable and it's
certainly interesting to discuss. And in any case, the elan vital was
endlessly debate for centuries and was eventually discarded as nonexistent.
Brent
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