On 3 February 2014 21:25, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote:
On 4 February 2014 02:26, David Nyman <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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? > > It's because you're stuck on the idea that consciousness is something > extra and optional. Those weren't rhetorical questions. I was asking you for your views. I don't think I'm stuck on any idea in particular. I'm more interested in trying to discern precisely what is entailed by framing a problem in a particular way. > If you could see that it was logically entailed by > certain physical phenomena or computations you wouldn't have a > problem. How right you are. Do you see this? If you do, perhaps you could explain to me how it is so entailed. > It would be like agonising over why an object in which every > point on its perimeter is equidistant from the centre has the quality > of roundness rather than squareness or nothingness; and how it could > be that roundness has no separate causal efficacy over and above what > can be explained in terms of the physicality of the object possessing > this property. > Yes, that would certainly follow if all the relevant phenomena could be exhaustively explained by the correct level of physical emergence. Do you presently have a view as to what that might be, or is this a case of "shut up and wait"? > > 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? > > I don't think these terms make any substantive difference. Whether my > consciousness can be replicated by a computer, for example, is an > important question and it is not dependent on whether under some use > of the English language it is correct to say that consciousness can be > eliminated. > Absolutely. If indeed my consciousness had been satisfactorily replicated by a computational prosthetic it would be very foolish of me to complain that it had been eliminated. Anyway, it would appear, that like Brent, you were using the term epiphenomenon to mean some emergent phenomenon that is fully entailed by canonical physical causation, like temperature. If that's the case, I agree with Brent that there would be no remaining motive to differentiate it categorically from any other such canonical phenomenon of emergence. By the way, if you think that consciousness may be that kind of phenomenon, does that imply that you reject any categorical 3p/1p distinction? I ask because I tend to agree with Bruno (and Brent, if I've understood his most recent comment) that the prize at the end of this road is a completed theory of the physical correlates of self-reported conscious phenomena. But many people take the view that after this prize is attained, there is still a "remainder problem" that doesn't seem so problematical with temperature or other emergent phenomena of the canonical kind. On the other hand, if one wishes to deny that anything remains to be accounted for after the physical correlates are explained it would be reasonable to describe one's position as eliminative with respect to any such remainder. David > > -- > 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. > -- 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]. 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