On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 5:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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. So your saying the presence (or absence) of consciousness does result in physicaly detectable differences in behavior? This is counter to the belief of epiphenominalism, where consciousness is take-it-or-leave-it without resulting in any physical differences. > 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. > > If partial zombies are absurd, then so are full zombies. Epiphenominalism makes full zombies logically (if not physically by your definition) possible. Therefore I also find epihpenominalism absurd as the idea of partial zombies. Jason -- 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.
