On 01 Feb 2014, at 23:48, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 2 February 2014 08:41, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> 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.
OK, but as you saw yourself, many will argue that if it is
epiphenomenal, it has no role in what is real, and it can be
eliminated. It is "semantics and misleading", but the notion of
epihenomenalism invites such misleading semantics.
But why not accept that consciousness is phenomenal.
Here comp is closer to the common sense. If I don't put my hands in
fire, it is because the feeling will be unpleasant. I can refer to my
conscious experience of it.
I am aware that the price of this common sense is high (for
aristotelian); as my hands and the fire will be phenomenal realities
too. But I find this cheaper than believing that my consciousness of
the unpleasant aspect of having an hand burned has no causal
connection with my "never-put-my-hand -in -the-fire" behavior.
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.
OK.
Whether the consciousness is epiphenomenal or not is irrelevant.
Right. The problem is that epiphenomenalism is a step toward
justifying the consciousness and conscience eliminations.
It makes also consciousness unnatural, not explainable by evolution.
It makes consciousness basically non-sensical, when consciousness is
better understood as the opposite: the maker of sense, the attributor
of meaning, the owner of some faith in some reality.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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