On Monday, February 3, 2014 4:25:14 PM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: > > On 4 February 2014 02:26, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com <javascript:>> > wrote: > > On 3 February 2014 12:06, Stathis Papaioannou > > <stat...@gmail.com<javascript:>> > wrote: > > > >> If consciousness is epiphenomenal I don't see how that diminishes its > >> importance in any way, let alone eliminates it. It is consistent with > >> evolution since it is not an optional extra: if intelligence evolved > >> then consciousness had to evolve as a necessary side-effect. It is > >> also consistent with the world being causally closed and eliminates > >> the paradox that David Nyman sees. > > > > > > Does it? You still haven't explained why bodies emit utterances that > appear > > to refer to this putative epiphenomenon. Or are you saying that they're > not > > really emitting such utterances or making such references? They're just > > physical systems going about their lawful physical business, but somehow > > that evokes a physically-undetectable extra something-or-other. And it's > > only in terms of this extra something-or-other that utterances seem to > exist > > that, in turn, only seem so to refer. Is that what it boils down to? > > It's because you're stuck on the idea that consciousness is something > extra and optional. If you could see that it was logically entailed by > certain physical phenomena or computations you wouldn't have a > problem. It would be like agonising over why an object in which every > point on its perimeter is equidistant from the centre has the quality > of roundness rather than squareness or nothingness; and how it could > be that roundness has no separate causal efficacy over and above what > can be explained in terms of the physicality of the object possessing > this property. >
What computation or physical phenomena could logically entail anything other than computation or physical phenomena though? Why does a computation logically begin to itch or turn orange, if the potential to itch or turn orange did not already exist? Craig > > By the way, I'm not really sure what the term epiphenomenon is supposed > to > > convey in this context. Is it indeed supposed to be a sort of one-way > > dualism in which, as I suggest above, a genuinely novel > something-or-other > > is evoked by physical behaviour but cannot reciprocally affect it (and > so > > cannot be detectable by it). Or is it really a form of cryptic > eliminativism > > in which, in the final analysis, there is no additional > something-or-other > > at all? > > I don't think these terms make any substantive difference. Whether my > consciousness can be replicated by a computer, for example, is an > important question and it is not dependent on whether under some use > of the English language it is correct to say that consciousness can be > eliminated. > > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
