On 2 February 2014 08:41, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: >> There can be no zombies if consciousness is epiphenomenal. > > > Just to be sure, I agree with that. > > I asked "why?" because I was thinking at the meta-level. > > The problem, is that if we can conceive that consciousness is epiphenomenal, > we can conceive that consciousness does not exist. > > That is why I am afraid that epiphenomenalism makes a step toward the > elimination of the person. > > With comp we can eliminate or own person or ego, but that's the kind of > thing which needs our own personal consent.
Another way to look at it is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal then it necessarily exists. >> Equivalently, if consciousness is epiphenomenal we could say it does >> not really exist and we are all zombies; but I think that's just >> semantics, and misleading. > > > As I said, that's eliminativism. > > Now tell me, is it a crime to torture a p-zombie? > > I know a three years kids who broke a doll purposefully. Should we send the > kid in jail? In an asylum? > > Consciousness is not epiphenomenal, even if the brain might have arbitrary > choices in some of the way to sum up big chunks of informations available > for the person in act. > > Consciousness might better be seen as phenomenal, 1p. It depends on truth, > self, and relative consistency. If the dolls lack consciousness then it is not a crime to torture them. Whether the consciousness is epiphenomenal or not is irrelevant. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
