On 4 February 2015 at 10:40, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> >> On 4 February 2015 at 10:13, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > >> > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> >> > wrote: >> >> >> >> On 4 February 2015 at 09:26, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Stathis Papaioannou >> >> > <stath...@gmail.com> >> >> > wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> >> >> >> wrote: >> >> >>> >> >> >>> I agree with John. If consciousness had no third-person observable >> >> >>> effects, it would be an epiphenomenon. And then there is no way to >> >> >>> explain >> >> >>> why we're even having this discussion about consciousness. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On the contrary, if consciousness were an epiphenomenon that would >> >> >> explain >> >> >> why it evolved: it is a necessary side effect of intelligent >> >> >> behaviour, >> >> >> and >> >> >> was not developed as a separate, useless add-on. >> >> >> >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > If consciousness is a side-effect that has no other effects, then >> >> > where >> >> > is >> >> > the information coming from when a person articulates something about >> >> > their >> >> > conscious experience? If consciousness itself has no effects at all, >> >> > then >> >> > how did the theory of epiphenomenalism come to be shared beyond the >> >> > conscious mind that first conceived of it? Wouldn't such a theory >> >> > necessarily be private and unsharable if consciousness has no >> >> > effects? >> >> >> >> My position is that if physics is causally closed, then ipso facto >> >> consciousness is epiphenomenal. Otherwise, you would be able to devise >> >> a test to determine if a given system is conscious. >> > >> > >> > Why do you presume such a test is not possible? >> > >> > Jason >> >> Could you suggest one? We could test other people, animals, computers, >> thermostats... > > > I don't know of one but I don't take that to mean no such test can exist, > especially when that assumption leads to things I find less plausible than > consciousness tests, such as epiphenomenalism.
What could such a test even look like? > I do follow what your reasoning that (no possible test for consciousness) -> > (epiphenominalism), but I use that reasoning to take the position that (not > epiphenominalism) -> (not no possible test for consciousness). Hence there > should be a test for consciousness under the assumption that > epiphenomenalism is false. (Which it seems to be because we can talk about > consciousness, also thought experiments like dancing/fading qualia lend > further support to consciousness being detectible and having detectible > influences on behavior, see: http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html ). I don't see that those thought experiments claim to make consciousness detectable. What they show is that IF an entity is conscious THEN its consciousness will be preserved if a functionally equivalent substitution is made in the entity. This is consistent with epiphenomenalism - the consciousness emerges necessarily from the right sort of behaviour. If it were not so, then in theory you could make a component that was functionally equivalent, but lacked consciousness (or lacked a consciousness-enabling property), which would allow the creation of partial zombies, which I believe are absurd. -- 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/d/optout.
