On 4 February 2015 at 10:40, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> On 4 February 2015 at 10:13, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > >> > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> >> > wrote: >> >> >> >> On 4 February 2015 at 09:26, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Stathis Papaioannou >> >> > <[email protected]> >> >> > wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Jason Resch <[email protected]> >> >> >> wrote: >> >> >>> >> >> >>> I agree with John. If consciousness had no third-person observable >> >> >>> effects, it would be an epiphenomenon. And then there is no way to >> >> >>> explain >> >> >>> why we're even having this discussion about consciousness. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On the contrary, if consciousness were an epiphenomenon that would >> >> >> explain >> >> >> why it evolved: it is a necessary side effect of intelligent >> >> >> behaviour, >> >> >> and >> >> >> was not developed as a separate, useless add-on. >> >> >> >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > If consciousness is a side-effect that has no other effects, then >> >> > where >> >> > is >> >> > the information coming from when a person articulates something about >> >> > their >> >> > conscious experience? If consciousness itself has no effects at all, >> >> > then >> >> > how did the theory of epiphenomenalism come to be shared beyond the >> >> > conscious mind that first conceived of it? Wouldn't such a theory >> >> > necessarily be private and unsharable if consciousness has no >> >> > effects? >> >> >> >> My position is that if physics is causally closed, then ipso facto >> >> consciousness is epiphenomenal. Otherwise, you would be able to devise >> >> a test to determine if a given system is conscious. >> > >> > >> > Why do you presume such a test is not possible? >> > >> > Jason >> >> Could you suggest one? We could test other people, animals, computers, >> thermostats... > > > I don't know of one but I don't take that to mean no such test can exist, > especially when that assumption leads to things I find less plausible than > consciousness tests, such as epiphenomenalism.
What could such a test even look like? > I do follow what your reasoning that (no possible test for consciousness) -> > (epiphenominalism), but I use that reasoning to take the position that (not > epiphenominalism) -> (not no possible test for consciousness). Hence there > should be a test for consciousness under the assumption that > epiphenomenalism is false. (Which it seems to be because we can talk about > consciousness, also thought experiments like dancing/fading qualia lend > further support to consciousness being detectible and having detectible > influences on behavior, see: http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html ). I don't see that those thought experiments claim to make consciousness detectable. What they show is that IF an entity is conscious THEN its consciousness will be preserved if a functionally equivalent substitution is made in the entity. This is consistent with epiphenomenalism - the consciousness emerges necessarily from the right sort of behaviour. If it were not so, then in theory you could make a component that was functionally equivalent, but lacked consciousness (or lacked a consciousness-enabling property), which would allow the creation of partial zombies, which I believe are absurd. -- 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/d/optout.
