On 12 February 2015 at 02:56, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > > > 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.
If zombies are impossible then what can be shown is that IF a certain being is conscious THEN it is impossible to make a zombie equivalent. But this cannot be used to show that consciousness exists either generally or in a particular case. >> 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. I agree that full zombies are also absurd. There is a potential problem here with the terms "absurd", "physically possible", "logically possible", "conceptually possible". I think zombies are conceptually possible, but I think they are logically impossible. I don't see why you say epiphenomenalism (as opposed to some other theory?) makes zombies logically possible. -- 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.
