On 2/4/2015 9:02 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 February 2015 at 05:11, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com
<mailto:stath...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> As I understand it, being an epiphenomenon means one can give a causal
> account of the phenomenon without mentioning it. But the epiphenomenon
> necessarily accompanies the phenomenon. In the case of consciousness it's
> essentially denying the possibility of a philosophical zombie.
Yes, that's how I would put it.
Trouble is, that's saying both too much and not enough. If one can give a causal account
of a phenomenon without mentioning the epiphenomenon then it would seem that the latter
has significance only under extrinsic interpretation (i.e. from the perspective of some
interested agent).
Exactly. I has significance for the person whose experience in the epiphenomenon. It's
an intrinsic "interpretation".
IOW, it would seem merely to be a term of convenience,
No. Because it has subjective significance does not imply it is "merely a term of
convenience", subjective significance is still significance (in a sense it's the basic
kind of significance).
in the same sense that the economy is a term of convenience for an extrinsic
interpretation of the net action of the constituent parts. Consequently to say that it
"necessarily accompanies the phenomenon" would appear be true in only a quite trivial sense.
What you're saying amounts to the claim that something that apparently has significance
only under extrinsic interpretation is actually (and necessarily) the agent of its own
parallel but *intrinsic* interpretation. Now the odd thing is that this kind of
'necessitation' can actually make sense, as Bruno suggests, but only under specific a
priori assumptions. Under those assumptions, consciousness is indeed just such an
'intrinsic interpretation' that transcends (or 'emerges from') a neutral third-person
ontological base in virtue of its
What does "its" refer to? If if has analytical truth "it" must be a
tautological proposition?
Brent
analytical truth with respect to an explicit epistemology. Hence it would necessarily be
the case (on those assumptions) that epistemology and ontology be inseparable. On this
basis, the notion of p-zombies would be frankly inconsistent.
David
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