On 3 February 2014 12:06, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote:
If consciousness is epiphenomenal I don't see how that diminishes its > importance in any way, let alone eliminates it. It is consistent with > evolution since it is not an optional extra: if intelligence evolved > then consciousness had to evolve as a necessary side-effect. It is > also consistent with the world being causally closed and eliminates > the paradox that David Nyman sees. > Does it? You still haven't explained why bodies emit utterances that appear to refer to this putative epiphenomenon. Or are you saying that they're not really emitting such utterances or making such references? They're just physical systems going about their lawful physical business, but somehow that evokes a physically-undetectable extra something-or-other. And it's only in terms of this extra something-or-other that utterances seem to exist that, in turn, only seem so to refer. Is that what it boils down to? By the way, I'm not really sure what the term epiphenomenon is supposed to convey in this context. Is it indeed supposed to be a sort of one-way dualism in which, as I suggest above, a genuinely novel something-or-other is evoked by physical behaviour but cannot reciprocally affect it (and so cannot be detectable by it). Or is it really a form of cryptic eliminativism in which, in the final analysis, there is no additional something-or-other at all? David -- 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.
