On 11 February 2015 at 19:03, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote:
>> [Brent Meeker] If consciousness were unnecessary it would not be an >> epiphenomenon, i.e. >> something that NECESSARILY accompanies the phenomena of thoughts. Is heat >> necessary to random molecular motion? > > > As I and others have pointed out earlier, you are describing emergence, not > epiphenomenalism (which is a dualist theory of mind made up when Descartes > interactionism was shown to be incompatible with the laws of motion). > > Nothing inherent to epiphenominalism implies that consciousness must follow > from the physics beyond your insistence that it does. If consciousness is due to physics then I think it *can* be shown that consciousness necessarily follows from any physics that gives rise to the behaviour of the putatively conscious entity. I invoke Chalmers' fading qualia argument, which shows that if consciousness were contingent rather than necessary it would be possible to make partial zombies. Partial zombies are absurd; if they are not absurd then we may as well say consciousness does not exist. -- 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.
