In all dualist models the mental cannot be explained in terms of the
physical, and the physical cannot be explained in terms of the mental.

When you say they are different models of the same process, you are
defining the situation in a monist sense: you accept there is only one
nature and the mental can be explained in terms of the physical, or the
physical can be described in terms of the mental. Non-reductive physicalism
on the other hand is physicalism with acknowledgement of the hard problem
together with the hopelessness of ever being able to explain one in terms
of the other.

Jason

On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 3:42 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:

>  On 2/5/2015 12:52 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 8:54 AM, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
>>  On 5 February 2015 at 13:35, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> On 4 February 2015 at 12:49, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>>> > On 3 February 2015 at 23:11, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> An epiphenomenon is a necessary side-effect of the primary phenomenon.
>>> >> The epiphenomenon has no separate causal efficacy of its own; if it
>>> >> did, then we could devise a test for consciousness. This, by the way,
>>> >> does not imply that consciousness does not exist or is unimportant.
>>> >>
>>> >> The parallel examples I would give are emergent phenomena such as the
>>> >> economy. You might say this is not the same thing because it is
>>> >> somehow obvious that the economy is "just" the behaviour of its
>>> >> component parts while this is not obvious for the brain and mind. This
>>> >> may be a valid point, but what is its significance, in the end?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Well, you still haven't addressed the reference issue (you didn't the
>>> last
>>> > time I asked you either). On the face of it, your position would
>>> appear to
>>> > be that there is no such reference; i.e. that everything is indeed
>>> 'just'
>>> > the behaviour of its component parts, whatever we suppose those to
>>> be.  But
>>> > if so, what are we talking about? Indeed, in what sense are we even
>>> talking
>>> > at all?
>>>
>>> What if it could be shown that consciousness necessarily supervenes on
>>> certain types of functional organisations, realised in any substrate,
>>> in any universe, under any physics? Would you still consider there was
>>> a reference problem?
>>>
>>
>>  My position essentially is that the reference issue is an artefact of a
>> false construction of the problem area. It arises whenever consciousness is
>> relegated to the role of a brute (because unexplained and a posteriori)
>> add-on or accompaniment to a causally-independent primary physical
>> ontology. This in effect gives rise to a form of implicit dualism that
>> leads more or less directly to such absurdities as philosophical zombies.
>> Describing consciousness as an 'epiphenomenon' of physics tends to this
>> kind of error, IMO.
>>
>>
>  I think this is very well put. Epiphenominalism doesn't mean
> supervienience or emergence, it is a form of dualism, as shown here:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DualismCausationViews3.svg
>
>
> This looks like dualism in name only to me.  The "mental" is just a
> different model of the same process modeled physically.  Just as
> thermodynamics is different model for statistical mechanics.
>
>  The "mental" is just a different model of the same process modeled
> physically.  Just as thermodynamics is different model for statistical
> mechanics.
>
> Brent
>
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