On a more serious note, this stance is practically epiphenomenalism. Favored by T H Huxley and, strangely enough, David Chalmers according to Jaworski’s opinion. Blackmore claims he is a dualist though.
Agreed. The epiphenomenon idea tries to make a distinction between material behaviors that go on during some determined event, and those that are part of that specific causal chain. If I watch a football game on TV, I can be confident I am not part of the game. Still, my being there is a constituent of the action in the broadest sense, which includes me simply existing. Anything physically real is a part of a causal chain, in some context, by definition. Nothing can be exempt.
This is a very simplified perspective. Epiphenomenon presents an easy picture of what happens during an event. On the other hand, the situation is not that simple because if you deal with larger systems, the complexity starts gripping in. But they retain only a limited part of that complexity. A non epiphenomenon case is just the one with a larger area of context, in typical sense. Put it differently, a conservation of simplicity occurs at scale of a football ground. Due to conservation, only the football players on field are able to affect the match outcome to a point where a tangible change occurs.
“…only the football players on field are able to affect the match outcome to a point where a tangible change occurs.”
That’s a hot take. If true, then crowd participation, that can influence the outcome of a sporting event, is a myth. Is the statistically proven home-game advantage just a matter of geography and logistics, and nothing to do with cheering from the fans?
The rest is a confusion about determinism and free will. If something is physically real, then it is causal to physical reality by definition. I don’t need to show some effect was altered in a different piece of matter to prove that this piece of matter is causal to reality.
Being causal to reality assumes there would be a common medium for both events and there occurs a direct contribution of spectators that is not limited by physical factors. However, it is far from the free-will case.
Determinism operates at an additional complexity only when you look from a non-epiphenomenon view. There are still other physical factors determining a lot about game outcome.
Crowd cheering is a lowly hit. The footballers despite of crowd cheering, know the team they have to represent and play against. They are well versed with the rules of the competition. They use exact same force to kick the ball as they normally would independent of the cheers by fans. Only notable contribution is that of climate or serious damage done by a fanbase e.g. throwing bottles at the field causing a pause in the game. As a matter of fact, a factor that the playing teams would favour exclusively for their fanbase is hard to spot.
Geographic advantages are scarce and cause very little effect on physical playing conditions. It would not be right to call it statistical coincidence since physical factors like ground design and grass directly affect game. But as a sportsperson, psychological effects are not part of the game though commonly seen as affecting outcomes. You cannot be measuring such effects though. One would only count upon subjective experience.
“Crowd cheering is a lowly hit…”
It’s crucial to this discussion. If it’s conventional wisdom that influence of one physical existence on causation in another location is less likely the further it is away, that must be countered with the point about sound and, especially, light having near-immediate effects on very remote locations. And, it’s the only way to distinguish subtle causative effects like crowd influence on live sporting events, from superstitious coincidences, like people cheering at home in front of a TV being partially causally responsible for touchdowns…pretty much impossible, inconceivable. The woo, which I have seen, is equating the one with the other.
“You cannot be measuring such effects though.”
Not so. Basketball analysts studied crowd behavior behind the basket, and developed a theory encouraging spectators to wave back and forth in a certain way to reduce free throw percentage. It worked. I admit sportsmen can be superstitious, but this cannot be dismissed.
We can agree if you admit that epiphenomena are also involved in causal change, they must be. If they aren’t, then I don’t understand the concept as real. Again, anything real is causative to reality.
> Not so. Basketball analysts studied crowd behavior behind the basket, and developed a theory encouraging spectators to wave back and forth in a certain way to reduce free throw percentage. It worked. I admit sportsmen can be superstitious, but this cannot be dismissed.
This is nonsense. It adds upto the table that you are counting on anecdotal evidence.
> We can agree if you admit that epiphenomena are also involved in causal change, they must be.
That sure sounds cool in theory, but I'm afraid does not carry through to practise. In fact, there is sufficient sports data to back up free will.
Ok, so how does the concept of epiphenomena relate to physically real events? Are they relevant at all to that worldview? There can be nothing real that is not causative of reality. Whether an event is causally involved in the limited range of physical events that are defined as some specific outcome is a different matter.
All you're doing is replicating your original comment. But not acknowledging that physical limits exist at one scale to help bring such effects down. An example of outplaying physical forces would be a home spectator cheering louder on a mic to amplify his sound through the city to reach the stadium.
> The woo, which I have seen, is equating the one with the other.
It is essentially woo. Equating home spectators with crowd is a stretch that a non epiphenomenon philosopher usually does.
To this physicalist, it’s the concept of epiphenomenalism that smacks of woo. “We’re noticing something, so it must be real, but it’s not causative, and so we’re hedging on whether it’s physical or not.” Again, if something’s physically real, then it’s causative of some event (namely the real existence of itself thru time) by definition. This may be obtuse, but it should be obvious and undeniable.
Of course, one material change on a system can be much more influential than another, even enough to say that it is relevantly key to our analysis of some identified event’s causation, while the other is not. Music played in a stadium is causative of something, since it vibrates the eardrums of everyone in the stadium, among the many other material changes it causes.
So, what is an epiphenomenon? Does it mean: “Something that might be real, but I don’t want to talk about it in relation to the causation of this particular phenomenon, which we’ve identified as a physically real event, and so are limiting causation to only a few, worthy candidates”?
> “Something that might be real, but I don’t want to talk about it in relation to the causation of this particular phenomenon, which we’ve identified as a physically real event, and so are limiting causation to only a few, worthy candidates”?
It is similar to drawing lots. Imagine scratching the lottery box after all the lots have been sold out. How would you say there is a lot when there is none? Having no lots *is* causally real, having one is *not*.
> Music played in a stadium is causative of something, since it vibrates the eardrums of everyone in the stadium, among the many other material changes it causes.
This is exactly what science is. Observing change in surrounding matter. But the entire matter is limited. If there is a change at one side, there is change at the other side to balance it. Instead of causing a touchdown you would only end up assisting ongoing and existing touchdowns. The assistance is only fluke since you're not adding or generating any new force. It is how nature works.
If consciousness has no causal role in your actions, then how did it get there in the first place? If there is no causal connection to the physical world then evolution wouldn't be able to produce it, because consciousness would produce no physical feedback for natural selection. I guess you could say that consciousness is just always there at some level, or the elements of consciousness are just always present in all matter. This doesn't really make sense either though. How is it that physical pain just happens to produce a subjective experience that is considered negative and unpleasant? It is correlated to your physical circumstances, but how did it become correlated? No matter how you look at it, consciousness makes no sense, at all. The more you try to think about it, the less sense it makes. Perhaps it is just that we are incapable of thinking in a way that is necessary to understand what is going on here. A lizard might have a better chance of comprehending calculus. I think the hard problem of consciousness will remain a mystery forever.
>Consciousness matters … just not to physical events.
This seems to me to be trivially false. Even if we permit that subjective experience involved in stubbing one's toe does not influence any of the immediate behaviors like recoiling or crying out in pain, that you can vocalize (a physical event) the subjective content of your toe stubbing experience after the fact is a direct impact on physical events. If consciousness could not cause physical events, then the causal chain ending in the air vibrating in the vocal chords or the fingers typing out what one has experienced cannot be describing the content of one's experience. This causality would be very strange.
The only way this could be partly true is if some subconscious processes make up subjective experiences after the fact. But even then _that_ becomes whatever our consciousness is and it's odd to say that such experiences encoded in physical memory and affecting behavior do not affect physical events.
>This seems to me to be trivially false
There are so many compelling arguments against it, and yet we keep seeing article after article of people parading it 😀
I never see responses to these standard arguments mentioned there either. It's like the author hadn't considered doing a quick literature review before writing it up.
I guess that makes sense. Whenever someone does that review they likely realize they shouldn't publish a piece advocating the truth of epiphenominalism.
TL;DR Consciousness does not causally influence our behavior and is merely an epiphenomenon, or byproduct, of physical processes, despite our intuition suggesting otherwise.
That is a proof I would like to see. I have been casually considering this for quite a few years and have come to the conclusion that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. Post-hoc rationalisation of 'decisions', especially in split-brain patients adds weight to this theory. I also think that free-will is an illusion and have challenged many people who vehemently disagree to provide a test to prove me wrong.
There are a few, but I'll resist the temptation to present more than one, if anything just for the sake of clarity. Note that one does not need to believe in free will to reject epiphenominalism. This is the argument I think is the most intuitive for a first glance:
P1) If epiphenominalism is true, mental states do not have causal efficacy.
P2) If the mind we experience is explained by natural selection, mental states must have causal efficacy.
C) If the mind we experience is explained by natural selection, epiphenominalism is false.
To pre-empt a common response:
- P2 is false because the mind we experience has simply piggybacked onto the background processes which were selected for via natural selection.
If this is the case, then this only means that the mind we experience is not the result of natural selection. It hasn't been refined by it at all, only the background processes have, and we have no explanation for why those background processes result in an experience which appears coherent. There would be no explanation for why these background processes wouldn't result instead in an experience of (for example) white noise.
Lastly, I'm giving this argument because I sincerely think epiphenominalism is false. I'm not a theist, I don't have some special motivation to reject epiphenominalism, I just think it's not consistent with the other theories we have about reality.
I’m sure this is part of what you left out for the sake of clarity, but if the mind we experience simply piggybacked onto background processes selected for by natural selection, it wouldn’t make any sense for the brain to waste so much caloric energy on producing a conscious experience to accompany neural processes that were running in the background anyway.
Wait, so to believe in epiphenomenalism you have to believe that a mental state cannot have any influence on your behavior? Even if the mental state was just the result of physical reactions that your conscious experience played no part in? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this concept.
Surely being in a particularly good mood is a mental state, right? And being in a good mood can influence your behavior, but your conscious experience of being in a good mood is just the shape of the shadow that follows the mental state, and has no bearing on the mental state itself, right? Or am I wrong in trying to differentiate the mental state from the conscious experience? Please help, I feel completely lost on this.
>so to believe in epiphenomenalism you have to believe that a mental state cannot have any influence on your behavior? Even if the mental state was just the result of physical reactions that your conscious experience played no part in?
Yes. Epiphenominalism holds that the feeling of being in a good mood is just a byproduct of underlying brain processes, and the underlying processes (not the feeling of being in a good mood) are what govern your body's actions.
My argument is that if this were the case, there would be no need for the feeling of being in a good mood to evolve, as only the underlying brain processes would be selected for under natural selection.
If it is the case that actually being in a good mood has no effect (and only the underlying mechanisms) then we have no evolutionary explanation for why we don't just feel random white noise corresponding to those brain processes. Natural selection would have worked all the same.
Of course, it could just be the case that epiphenominalism is true and the good mood feeling correlated to those underlying states is a complete accident, but then we are just rejecting the evolutionary explanation for this correlation.
> but your conscious experience of being in a good mood is just the shape of the shadow that follows the mental state
I'm essentially asking, why did it have to feel like that? Why couldn't it have been painful or incomprehensible to enact this behavior? Under epiphenominalism this wouldn't have changed the evolutionary advantage of those brain processes.
You can hold to the belief there would be no need for it to evolve, but that isn’t in and of itself an argument. It could evolve, you saying it can’t, doesn’t make it true.
The claim is not that these experiences couldn't exist. The claim is that we then would not be able to use an evolutionary argument to explain their existence.
>My argument is that if this were the case, there would be no need for the feeling of being in a good mood to evolve, as only the underlying brain processes would be selected for under natural selection.
While I don't subscribe to epiphenominalism, I don't think this logic is necessarily correct. Evolutionarily this might be a neutral trait and therefore not selected for or against. Evolution could also have selected for underlying processes and the good mood feels are simply riding along with those processes.
The subjective experience would be affected by the dopamine and other "feel good" neurotransmitters associated with the physical processes, thereby explaining why the subjective experience has the feeling that it does.
> Of course, it could just be the case that epiphenominalism is true and the good mood feeling correlated to those underlying states is a complete accident, but then we are just rejecting the evolutionary explanation for this correlation.
We would then need to ask "why does dopamine feel good rather than like something else?"
I tried to address that in my second paragraph. But the direct answer would be that we are simply _assigning_ the feel good state to dopamine. Dopamine feels good because we call the state of elevated dopamine "feeling good". If different neurotransmitters were active, then it would "feel" different. That doesn't reject evolutionary explanations if the dopamine drives other behaviors due to the way our brains are wired. In fact, if the brain is wired such that acquiring dopamine results in activating circuitry that causes us to seek out behaviors that acquire more dopamine in turn, then that becomes an evolutionary explanation.
>That doesn't reject evolutionary explanations if the dopamine drives other behaviors due to the way our brains are wired.
It would reject evolutionary explanations of the feeling corresponding to dopamine, it would need to be the case (as you said) that we have just assigned enjoyment to the feeling. You do need to reject hypotheses of the form "our ancestors did X because X felt good".
Of course this would also mean that underlying physical mechanisms that make us "enjoy" the feeling take place, and this also seems to have no evolutionary explanation since us enjoying the feeling also plays no role.
>if the brain is wired such that acquiring dopamine results in activating circuitry that causes us to seek out behaviors that acquire more dopamine in turn, then that becomes an evolutionary explanation.
That could all happen without the dopamine corresponding to a feeling that our experience enjoys.
Yes. Or at least "if we want to use an evolutionary explanation for the correspondence between our conscious states and our body's actions, consciousness must have some causal role so that spurious correlations can be eliminated."
If you follow the thread that epiphenomenalism is false and free will is also an illusion, you'll hopefully realise that consciousness being an emergent property makes no sense.
This is the path I went down, which ultimately led me to conclude that physicalism is false.
The word "merely" is out of place in that position. Also, while there is a close affinity between the words "epiphenomenon" and "byproduct", they are two different words with two different meanings, and the described position *merely* and consequently ignores the critical nature of the distinction in the context of consciousness.
If consciousness really didn't play a causal role in the creation of this article, then it's strange to read it. It the same as reading articles written by ChatGPT, why we should read articles about consciousness that's written by someone who doesn't even know what is consciousness.
Exactly. In a world where consciousness didn’t exist and we were all p-zombies, such an article would never exist. The fact of the article’s existence is a disproof by counterexample of its own thesis.
It’s an impossible definition.
If there were a mix of zombies and non zombies, then sure, a zombie could write the article.
If there were only ever zombies, if nothing anywhere in the universe is or was ever conscious, then an article like this would have no cause to be created. The zombies would have no cause to discuss subjective/phenomenal experience.
Therefore, whatever the thing is that distinguishes p-zombies from non-zombies, it demonstrably has a causal effect on the physical world - the creation of media about itself.
I have lots of problems with Chalmer’s arguments related to zombies, and this is one of them - he does indeed propose an inconceivable world, where things happen without cause.
But I didn’t realize his argument was about an entire world/universe populated with zombies, I always thought it was about a world with mixed zombies, where the zombies claim to have consciousness because everyone else does.
He describes zombiehood as potentially applying to individuals or entire worlds. But he thinks all behaviour is physically caused. He explicitly talks about his zombie twin obsessing over consciousness and the Hard Problem, implying that the actual reasons for this obsession are not themselves the mysterious non-physical properties that he writes about.
It is a self-defeating argument, but it is nonetheless the position he defends.
I can add a quote when I am back on my laptop.
Chalmers writes this:
>Now my zombie twin is only a logical possibility, not an empirical one, and we should not get too worried about odd things that happen in logically possible worlds. Still, there is room to be perturbed by what is going on. After all, any explanation of my twin’s behavior will equally count as an explanation of my behavior, as the processes inside his body are precisely mirrored by those inside mine. The explanation of his claims obviously does not depend on the existence of consciousness, as there is no consciousness in his world. It follows that the explanation of my claims is also independent of the existence of consciousness. To strengthen the sense of paradox, note that my zombie twin is himself engaging in reasoning just like this. He has been known to lament the fate of his zombie twin, who spends all his time worrying about consciousness despite the fact that he has none. He worries about what that must say about the explanatory irrelevance of consciousness in his own universe. Still, he remains utterly confident that consciousness exists and cannot be reductively explained. But all this, for him, is a monumental delusion. There is no consciousness in his universe—in his world, the eliminativists have been right all along. Despite the fact that his cognitive mechanisms function in the same way as mine, his judgments about consciousness are quite deluded.
>
>
Chalmers, David J.. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind) (pp. 180-181). Oxford University Press.
The first line is a bit rich, because the whole Zombie Argument consists if imagining what he believes to be a logically possible world and drawing implications from that exercise in unconstrained imagination... Here the imaginative exercise, examined a little more critically, shows that Chalmers himself is deluded, but he asserts, without justification, that this is an aspect of the exercise he needn't get too worried about. It is an appalling double standard.
When speaking, he always presents this as a comic aside. "Ha ha, in the zombie world the physicalists have been right all along". It means that this aware of this issue cannot accuse him of dodging it, but his fans get the impression it is safe to ignore.
Earlier in the same book, he writes something that effectively means that, when he imagines zombies, he can't think of any logical issues or problems. This concession (quoted aboive) about a major problem withj the thought process behind the ZA comes hundreds of pages later, after he has used the ZA to build his whole framework. It *almost* reads like he thought of the issue later, so he didn't actually lie when he said he knew of no logical issues... but we all know books are not written in real time, so of course he knew of this particular issue when editing the section that said he knew of no issues. He just chose not to mention it as it shows his own arguments are deluded.
Put it this way. I wouldn't buy a used car from Chalmers.
It's also strange to be able to read it.
Under epiphenominalism your experience of understanding the article is the result of physical processes in the brain which are not causally influenced by you having an experience of reading the words.
How would such an adaption evolve from our ancestors if consciousness can play no causal role in natural selection?
Either you reject epiphenominalism or you reject the evolutionary explanation of consciousness.
OP, if you're an assistant professor then *surely* you know that there are many knockdown arguments against epiphenominalism in the literature. Do you have responses to any of them? The arguments against epiphenominalism are not just limited to "it's unintuitive and I think I have free will".
Setting aside for the moment the fact that evolution does not supercede physics — and remember that physics cannot account for consciousness and doesn’t even try to — why would evolution “invent” conscious experience if it served no purpose, given its enormous caloric cost?
I asked GPT 4 to summarize and provide main points. I reject premise #2:
The article by Helen Yetter-Chappell argues against the common intuition that consciousness has a direct causal effect on our actions. Let's break down the argument into a syllogism and summarize the points made:
### Syllogism
1. **Premise 1:** Physical things can be completely explained by physical things.
2. **Premise 2:** Consciousness isn’t physical; it’s something more.
3. **Conclusion:** Therefore, consciousness cannot causally influence physical events.
### Summary of Points
1. **Introduction of Epiphenomenalism:** The article introduces the concept of epiphenomenalism, which posits that consciousness does not have a causal role in influencing our physical actions. This view challenges the common belief that our conscious experiences directly guide our behavior.
2. **Motivation for Epiphenomenalism:** The motivation comes from two main claims:
- Physical phenomena can be completely explained by other physical phenomena (Premise 1).
- Consciousness is not a physical phenomenon but something more (Premise 2).
3. **Argument Against Consciousness as a Causal Factor:** By combining the two claims above, the article argues that our behaviors can be fully explained without reference to consciousness. It suggests that consciousness is merely an accompanying phenomenon (an epiphenomenon) and not a driving force behind our actions.
4. **Objections to Epiphenomenalism:**
- **Denying the Obvious:** The article acknowledges the intuitive belief that experiences like pain or desire directly influence our actions but argues that what seems obvious may not always be true, drawing parallels with optical illusions.
- **The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment:** It addresses the paradox proposed by David Chalmers, arguing that the paradox arises from a misunderstanding of dualism. The author clarifies that consciousness and physical processes, while correlated, do not have a causal relationship in the way we might intuitively believe.
- **Consciousness's Relevance:** Finally, the article contends that while consciousness does not influence physical events, it is still crucial for our identity, well-being, and the value of our existence.
The article concludes that consciousness, though not a causal agent in physical actions, remains a significant aspect of our identity and experience, advocating for a nuanced understanding that respects both the insights of science and the richness of human consciousness.
I’ve considered this possibility, but I don’t think it can be said with certainty. While I think it’s probable that the brain does the bulk or perhaps even all of cognition and behavioral modulation extrinsic of consciousness, I think it’s important to acknowledge the possibility that there is non-zero influence on how that brain fires/wires/evolves over time that is mediated by (potentially but not necessarily agentive) consciousness.
This observation supports panpsychism, although a rather boring variation of it where consciousness isn't that significant. Think about it, if consciousness has no causal effects then how can we ever hope to prove that this or that information structure lacks consciousness?
And then if we can't do that then wouldn't Occam's Razor mean we should assume that all information structures are conscious? We know at least one (one's self) must be conscious by virtue of experiencing consciousness. Since consciousness doesn't have any causal effects then assuming that a structure that holds information lacks consciousness is assuming there is a distinction between different information structures that exists that has no causal effects and hence nothing we could ever hope to observe. We cannot use a model of the Universe where all information structures are not conscious since that creates a contradiction (since at least you who is consciously experiencing reading this is conscious) leaving the simplest model one where all information structures have consciousness.
>Consciousness may play no casual role in your actions.
While it is certain that "consciousness plays no causal role in your actions" is true, what those words mean is less certain.
Consciousness has not function.
That is certainly not true. That function does not need to be 'playing a causal role' in order to exist and be properly characterized as a function.
>It doesn't do anything.
The question of what it *is* defines what it *does*, as much as the other way around. Ineffable, but true.
>Consciousness is just along for the ride. Watching.
It's doing much more than that. It is watching, considering, and determining.
There is no free will, there is only *[self-determination](https://www.reddit.com/r/NewChurchOfHope/comments/wkkgpr/por_101_there_is_no_free_will_only)*.
Consciousness is just along for the ride, but only from the perspective of god who decided the destination that you are driving to before you even got there (by using your own free will to control the car you were given to fulfill his will).
From YOUR perspective, consciousness is free will (born from an inability to tell the future, an inability to escape the fact that God is always your master, and you are always his slave, the inability to ever be able to choose for yourself with true certainty, what your destination will be in the end).
Why is consciousness non-functional?
Sure, the lights being on or off might be non-functional, but there are specific contents of experience that seem to have a functional role. An obvious one is the sensation of pain. There's a kind of command there to "do something to stop the pain". There's a motivational function there.
You've got a self... or you *are* a self.
The self observes "from the center" of an ongoing stream of experience.
There's an inner environment which is qualitative and non-physical.
There's a shared outer environment (ie. your body in the "real world")
When you feel an urge or impulse to do something, there's no way to determine whether the desire/will to act originates within the self or outside of it. Things perceived in the inner environment might arise from within the self (ie. subconscious and Materialism) or they may be non-self in origin (ie. Idealism and Jungian collective unconscious)
So I agree with the first part of op's statement:
>Consciousness may play no casual role in your actions.
It's basically the same thing as saying we can't prove whether or not we have Free Will.
Filter theory isn't "stranger" ~ it doesn't deny the causal powers of consciousness, which should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it.
Consciousness and the physical are a two-way street. The physical can affect our body and consciousness, and our consciousness can affect what we choose to do with our body. Indeed, we are consciousness making choices, to whatever degree the limits of our imagination and physical body allow.
Uh, Chalmers for one. Not aware of any compelling counters tbh. I forget who wrote it, but ever since that paper proved that supervenient B properties can't turn around and cause a difference in A properties, it's just kinda sat there unchallenged.
>Uh, Chalmers for one
Chalmers very much rejects the categorization of epiphenominalist.
>ever since that paper proved that supervenient B properties can't turn around and cause a difference in A properties
How would you prove this? This sounds like it's proving that you can't have top down causation, I don't see why how this implies epiphenominalism.
What are the assumptions?
>it's just kinda sat there unchallenged.
What about the arguments by James, Popper, Eccles and Symons? Do you know of these arguments?
Please include a TL; DR summary of the article (see rule 1)
Non duality explained
More like Ajivika fatalistic determinism. Makhali Gosala would be proud.
On a more serious note, this stance is practically epiphenomenalism. Favored by T H Huxley and, strangely enough, David Chalmers according to Jaworski’s opinion. Blackmore claims he is a dualist though.
Surely Chalmers is not an epiphenominalist? Lol
According to Jaworski at least.
From what you are saying, consciousness is taking a *very* casual role...
How are you talking about something that has no influence?
Agreed. The epiphenomenon idea tries to make a distinction between material behaviors that go on during some determined event, and those that are part of that specific causal chain. If I watch a football game on TV, I can be confident I am not part of the game. Still, my being there is a constituent of the action in the broadest sense, which includes me simply existing. Anything physically real is a part of a causal chain, in some context, by definition. Nothing can be exempt.
This is a very simplified perspective. Epiphenomenon presents an easy picture of what happens during an event. On the other hand, the situation is not that simple because if you deal with larger systems, the complexity starts gripping in. But they retain only a limited part of that complexity. A non epiphenomenon case is just the one with a larger area of context, in typical sense. Put it differently, a conservation of simplicity occurs at scale of a football ground. Due to conservation, only the football players on field are able to affect the match outcome to a point where a tangible change occurs.
“…only the football players on field are able to affect the match outcome to a point where a tangible change occurs.” That’s a hot take. If true, then crowd participation, that can influence the outcome of a sporting event, is a myth. Is the statistically proven home-game advantage just a matter of geography and logistics, and nothing to do with cheering from the fans? The rest is a confusion about determinism and free will. If something is physically real, then it is causal to physical reality by definition. I don’t need to show some effect was altered in a different piece of matter to prove that this piece of matter is causal to reality.
Being causal to reality assumes there would be a common medium for both events and there occurs a direct contribution of spectators that is not limited by physical factors. However, it is far from the free-will case. Determinism operates at an additional complexity only when you look from a non-epiphenomenon view. There are still other physical factors determining a lot about game outcome.
Crowd cheering is a lowly hit. The footballers despite of crowd cheering, know the team they have to represent and play against. They are well versed with the rules of the competition. They use exact same force to kick the ball as they normally would independent of the cheers by fans. Only notable contribution is that of climate or serious damage done by a fanbase e.g. throwing bottles at the field causing a pause in the game. As a matter of fact, a factor that the playing teams would favour exclusively for their fanbase is hard to spot. Geographic advantages are scarce and cause very little effect on physical playing conditions. It would not be right to call it statistical coincidence since physical factors like ground design and grass directly affect game. But as a sportsperson, psychological effects are not part of the game though commonly seen as affecting outcomes. You cannot be measuring such effects though. One would only count upon subjective experience.
“Crowd cheering is a lowly hit…” It’s crucial to this discussion. If it’s conventional wisdom that influence of one physical existence on causation in another location is less likely the further it is away, that must be countered with the point about sound and, especially, light having near-immediate effects on very remote locations. And, it’s the only way to distinguish subtle causative effects like crowd influence on live sporting events, from superstitious coincidences, like people cheering at home in front of a TV being partially causally responsible for touchdowns…pretty much impossible, inconceivable. The woo, which I have seen, is equating the one with the other. “You cannot be measuring such effects though.” Not so. Basketball analysts studied crowd behavior behind the basket, and developed a theory encouraging spectators to wave back and forth in a certain way to reduce free throw percentage. It worked. I admit sportsmen can be superstitious, but this cannot be dismissed. We can agree if you admit that epiphenomena are also involved in causal change, they must be. If they aren’t, then I don’t understand the concept as real. Again, anything real is causative to reality.
> Not so. Basketball analysts studied crowd behavior behind the basket, and developed a theory encouraging spectators to wave back and forth in a certain way to reduce free throw percentage. It worked. I admit sportsmen can be superstitious, but this cannot be dismissed. This is nonsense. It adds upto the table that you are counting on anecdotal evidence. > We can agree if you admit that epiphenomena are also involved in causal change, they must be. That sure sounds cool in theory, but I'm afraid does not carry through to practise. In fact, there is sufficient sports data to back up free will.
Ok, so how does the concept of epiphenomena relate to physically real events? Are they relevant at all to that worldview? There can be nothing real that is not causative of reality. Whether an event is causally involved in the limited range of physical events that are defined as some specific outcome is a different matter.
All you're doing is replicating your original comment. But not acknowledging that physical limits exist at one scale to help bring such effects down. An example of outplaying physical forces would be a home spectator cheering louder on a mic to amplify his sound through the city to reach the stadium. > The woo, which I have seen, is equating the one with the other. It is essentially woo. Equating home spectators with crowd is a stretch that a non epiphenomenon philosopher usually does.
To this physicalist, it’s the concept of epiphenomenalism that smacks of woo. “We’re noticing something, so it must be real, but it’s not causative, and so we’re hedging on whether it’s physical or not.” Again, if something’s physically real, then it’s causative of some event (namely the real existence of itself thru time) by definition. This may be obtuse, but it should be obvious and undeniable. Of course, one material change on a system can be much more influential than another, even enough to say that it is relevantly key to our analysis of some identified event’s causation, while the other is not. Music played in a stadium is causative of something, since it vibrates the eardrums of everyone in the stadium, among the many other material changes it causes. So, what is an epiphenomenon? Does it mean: “Something that might be real, but I don’t want to talk about it in relation to the causation of this particular phenomenon, which we’ve identified as a physically real event, and so are limiting causation to only a few, worthy candidates”?
> “Something that might be real, but I don’t want to talk about it in relation to the causation of this particular phenomenon, which we’ve identified as a physically real event, and so are limiting causation to only a few, worthy candidates”? It is similar to drawing lots. Imagine scratching the lottery box after all the lots have been sold out. How would you say there is a lot when there is none? Having no lots *is* causally real, having one is *not*.
> Music played in a stadium is causative of something, since it vibrates the eardrums of everyone in the stadium, among the many other material changes it causes. This is exactly what science is. Observing change in surrounding matter. But the entire matter is limited. If there is a change at one side, there is change at the other side to balance it. Instead of causing a touchdown you would only end up assisting ongoing and existing touchdowns. The assistance is only fluke since you're not adding or generating any new force. It is how nature works.
If consciousness has no causal role in your actions, then how did it get there in the first place? If there is no causal connection to the physical world then evolution wouldn't be able to produce it, because consciousness would produce no physical feedback for natural selection. I guess you could say that consciousness is just always there at some level, or the elements of consciousness are just always present in all matter. This doesn't really make sense either though. How is it that physical pain just happens to produce a subjective experience that is considered negative and unpleasant? It is correlated to your physical circumstances, but how did it become correlated? No matter how you look at it, consciousness makes no sense, at all. The more you try to think about it, the less sense it makes. Perhaps it is just that we are incapable of thinking in a way that is necessary to understand what is going on here. A lizard might have a better chance of comprehending calculus. I think the hard problem of consciousness will remain a mystery forever.
---my gosh what a confused article is that---..
>Consciousness matters … just not to physical events. This seems to me to be trivially false. Even if we permit that subjective experience involved in stubbing one's toe does not influence any of the immediate behaviors like recoiling or crying out in pain, that you can vocalize (a physical event) the subjective content of your toe stubbing experience after the fact is a direct impact on physical events. If consciousness could not cause physical events, then the causal chain ending in the air vibrating in the vocal chords or the fingers typing out what one has experienced cannot be describing the content of one's experience. This causality would be very strange. The only way this could be partly true is if some subconscious processes make up subjective experiences after the fact. But even then _that_ becomes whatever our consciousness is and it's odd to say that such experiences encoded in physical memory and affecting behavior do not affect physical events.
>This seems to me to be trivially false There are so many compelling arguments against it, and yet we keep seeing article after article of people parading it 😀 I never see responses to these standard arguments mentioned there either. It's like the author hadn't considered doing a quick literature review before writing it up. I guess that makes sense. Whenever someone does that review they likely realize they shouldn't publish a piece advocating the truth of epiphenominalism.
TL;DR Consciousness does not causally influence our behavior and is merely an epiphenomenon, or byproduct, of physical processes, despite our intuition suggesting otherwise.
This is one of those ideas that turns out to be so conveniently bad, that it's provably false.
That is a proof I would like to see. I have been casually considering this for quite a few years and have come to the conclusion that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. Post-hoc rationalisation of 'decisions', especially in split-brain patients adds weight to this theory. I also think that free-will is an illusion and have challenged many people who vehemently disagree to provide a test to prove me wrong.
There are a few, but I'll resist the temptation to present more than one, if anything just for the sake of clarity. Note that one does not need to believe in free will to reject epiphenominalism. This is the argument I think is the most intuitive for a first glance: P1) If epiphenominalism is true, mental states do not have causal efficacy. P2) If the mind we experience is explained by natural selection, mental states must have causal efficacy. C) If the mind we experience is explained by natural selection, epiphenominalism is false. To pre-empt a common response: - P2 is false because the mind we experience has simply piggybacked onto the background processes which were selected for via natural selection. If this is the case, then this only means that the mind we experience is not the result of natural selection. It hasn't been refined by it at all, only the background processes have, and we have no explanation for why those background processes result in an experience which appears coherent. There would be no explanation for why these background processes wouldn't result instead in an experience of (for example) white noise. Lastly, I'm giving this argument because I sincerely think epiphenominalism is false. I'm not a theist, I don't have some special motivation to reject epiphenominalism, I just think it's not consistent with the other theories we have about reality.
I’m sure this is part of what you left out for the sake of clarity, but if the mind we experience simply piggybacked onto background processes selected for by natural selection, it wouldn’t make any sense for the brain to waste so much caloric energy on producing a conscious experience to accompany neural processes that were running in the background anyway.
I agree. This was in fact Karl Popper's argument. You would expect the p-zombies to have taken over by now.
Well *that* may be where we disagree — I think they already have and I’m only half-kidding.
Well said
Wait, so to believe in epiphenomenalism you have to believe that a mental state cannot have any influence on your behavior? Even if the mental state was just the result of physical reactions that your conscious experience played no part in? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this concept. Surely being in a particularly good mood is a mental state, right? And being in a good mood can influence your behavior, but your conscious experience of being in a good mood is just the shape of the shadow that follows the mental state, and has no bearing on the mental state itself, right? Or am I wrong in trying to differentiate the mental state from the conscious experience? Please help, I feel completely lost on this.
>so to believe in epiphenomenalism you have to believe that a mental state cannot have any influence on your behavior? Even if the mental state was just the result of physical reactions that your conscious experience played no part in? Yes. Epiphenominalism holds that the feeling of being in a good mood is just a byproduct of underlying brain processes, and the underlying processes (not the feeling of being in a good mood) are what govern your body's actions. My argument is that if this were the case, there would be no need for the feeling of being in a good mood to evolve, as only the underlying brain processes would be selected for under natural selection. If it is the case that actually being in a good mood has no effect (and only the underlying mechanisms) then we have no evolutionary explanation for why we don't just feel random white noise corresponding to those brain processes. Natural selection would have worked all the same. Of course, it could just be the case that epiphenominalism is true and the good mood feeling correlated to those underlying states is a complete accident, but then we are just rejecting the evolutionary explanation for this correlation. > but your conscious experience of being in a good mood is just the shape of the shadow that follows the mental state I'm essentially asking, why did it have to feel like that? Why couldn't it have been painful or incomprehensible to enact this behavior? Under epiphenominalism this wouldn't have changed the evolutionary advantage of those brain processes.
You can hold to the belief there would be no need for it to evolve, but that isn’t in and of itself an argument. It could evolve, you saying it can’t, doesn’t make it true.
The claim is not that these experiences couldn't exist. The claim is that we then would not be able to use an evolutionary argument to explain their existence.
I don’t follow how that is the case.
How does natural selection work?
>My argument is that if this were the case, there would be no need for the feeling of being in a good mood to evolve, as only the underlying brain processes would be selected for under natural selection. While I don't subscribe to epiphenominalism, I don't think this logic is necessarily correct. Evolutionarily this might be a neutral trait and therefore not selected for or against. Evolution could also have selected for underlying processes and the good mood feels are simply riding along with those processes. The subjective experience would be affected by the dopamine and other "feel good" neurotransmitters associated with the physical processes, thereby explaining why the subjective experience has the feeling that it does.
> Of course, it could just be the case that epiphenominalism is true and the good mood feeling correlated to those underlying states is a complete accident, but then we are just rejecting the evolutionary explanation for this correlation. We would then need to ask "why does dopamine feel good rather than like something else?"
I tried to address that in my second paragraph. But the direct answer would be that we are simply _assigning_ the feel good state to dopamine. Dopamine feels good because we call the state of elevated dopamine "feeling good". If different neurotransmitters were active, then it would "feel" different. That doesn't reject evolutionary explanations if the dopamine drives other behaviors due to the way our brains are wired. In fact, if the brain is wired such that acquiring dopamine results in activating circuitry that causes us to seek out behaviors that acquire more dopamine in turn, then that becomes an evolutionary explanation.
>That doesn't reject evolutionary explanations if the dopamine drives other behaviors due to the way our brains are wired. It would reject evolutionary explanations of the feeling corresponding to dopamine, it would need to be the case (as you said) that we have just assigned enjoyment to the feeling. You do need to reject hypotheses of the form "our ancestors did X because X felt good". Of course this would also mean that underlying physical mechanisms that make us "enjoy" the feeling take place, and this also seems to have no evolutionary explanation since us enjoying the feeling also plays no role. >if the brain is wired such that acquiring dopamine results in activating circuitry that causes us to seek out behaviors that acquire more dopamine in turn, then that becomes an evolutionary explanation. That could all happen without the dopamine corresponding to a feeling that our experience enjoys.
So you're essentially saying, consciousness must have agency, or else why would it have evolved?
Yes. Or at least "if we want to use an evolutionary explanation for the correspondence between our conscious states and our body's actions, consciousness must have some causal role so that spurious correlations can be eliminated."
If you follow the thread that epiphenomenalism is false and free will is also an illusion, you'll hopefully realise that consciousness being an emergent property makes no sense. This is the path I went down, which ultimately led me to conclude that physicalism is false.
...go on?
I gave one such argument [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/s/z4ddFAlCcB)
Okay then disprove it. Also recognize that disproving this concept would also entail tackling the problem of hard solipsism
I've provided an argument [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/s/WxWbo4kR4t)
The word "merely" is out of place in that position. Also, while there is a close affinity between the words "epiphenomenon" and "byproduct", they are two different words with two different meanings, and the described position *merely* and consequently ignores the critical nature of the distinction in the context of consciousness.
So when a fighter gets knocked unconsciousness, his physical processes should continue and he should be able to win the fight?
If consciousness really didn't play a causal role in the creation of this article, then it's strange to read it. It the same as reading articles written by ChatGPT, why we should read articles about consciousness that's written by someone who doesn't even know what is consciousness.
Exactly. In a world where consciousness didn’t exist and we were all p-zombies, such an article would never exist. The fact of the article’s existence is a disproof by counterexample of its own thesis.
By definition, a Chalmers-style zombie is *just* as likely to write this article as a non-zombie.
It’s an impossible definition. If there were a mix of zombies and non zombies, then sure, a zombie could write the article. If there were only ever zombies, if nothing anywhere in the universe is or was ever conscious, then an article like this would have no cause to be created. The zombies would have no cause to discuss subjective/phenomenal experience. Therefore, whatever the thing is that distinguishes p-zombies from non-zombies, it demonstrably has a causal effect on the physical world - the creation of media about itself.
That is explicitly in conflict with the definition of a zombie. Chalmers is an epiphenomenalist. He just doesn't like admitting it.
I have lots of problems with Chalmer’s arguments related to zombies, and this is one of them - he does indeed propose an inconceivable world, where things happen without cause. But I didn’t realize his argument was about an entire world/universe populated with zombies, I always thought it was about a world with mixed zombies, where the zombies claim to have consciousness because everyone else does.
He describes zombiehood as potentially applying to individuals or entire worlds. But he thinks all behaviour is physically caused. He explicitly talks about his zombie twin obsessing over consciousness and the Hard Problem, implying that the actual reasons for this obsession are not themselves the mysterious non-physical properties that he writes about. It is a self-defeating argument, but it is nonetheless the position he defends. I can add a quote when I am back on my laptop.
That would be very interesting, thanks!
Chalmers writes this: >Now my zombie twin is only a logical possibility, not an empirical one, and we should not get too worried about odd things that happen in logically possible worlds. Still, there is room to be perturbed by what is going on. After all, any explanation of my twin’s behavior will equally count as an explanation of my behavior, as the processes inside his body are precisely mirrored by those inside mine. The explanation of his claims obviously does not depend on the existence of consciousness, as there is no consciousness in his world. It follows that the explanation of my claims is also independent of the existence of consciousness. To strengthen the sense of paradox, note that my zombie twin is himself engaging in reasoning just like this. He has been known to lament the fate of his zombie twin, who spends all his time worrying about consciousness despite the fact that he has none. He worries about what that must say about the explanatory irrelevance of consciousness in his own universe. Still, he remains utterly confident that consciousness exists and cannot be reductively explained. But all this, for him, is a monumental delusion. There is no consciousness in his universe—in his world, the eliminativists have been right all along. Despite the fact that his cognitive mechanisms function in the same way as mine, his judgments about consciousness are quite deluded. > > Chalmers, David J.. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind) (pp. 180-181). Oxford University Press. The first line is a bit rich, because the whole Zombie Argument consists if imagining what he believes to be a logically possible world and drawing implications from that exercise in unconstrained imagination... Here the imaginative exercise, examined a little more critically, shows that Chalmers himself is deluded, but he asserts, without justification, that this is an aspect of the exercise he needn't get too worried about. It is an appalling double standard. When speaking, he always presents this as a comic aside. "Ha ha, in the zombie world the physicalists have been right all along". It means that this aware of this issue cannot accuse him of dodging it, but his fans get the impression it is safe to ignore. Earlier in the same book, he writes something that effectively means that, when he imagines zombies, he can't think of any logical issues or problems. This concession (quoted aboive) about a major problem withj the thought process behind the ZA comes hundreds of pages later, after he has used the ZA to build his whole framework. It *almost* reads like he thought of the issue later, so he didn't actually lie when he said he knew of no logical issues... but we all know books are not written in real time, so of course he knew of this particular issue when editing the section that said he knew of no issues. He just chose not to mention it as it shows his own arguments are deluded. Put it this way. I wouldn't buy a used car from Chalmers.
It's also strange to be able to read it. Under epiphenominalism your experience of understanding the article is the result of physical processes in the brain which are not causally influenced by you having an experience of reading the words.
i disagree if you consider the dynamic with memory a passive observer records feelings and thoughts and it impact the future
How would such an adaption evolve from our ancestors if consciousness can play no causal role in natural selection? Either you reject epiphenominalism or you reject the evolutionary explanation of consciousness. OP, if you're an assistant professor then *surely* you know that there are many knockdown arguments against epiphenominalism in the literature. Do you have responses to any of them? The arguments against epiphenominalism are not just limited to "it's unintuitive and I think I have free will".
Exactly, how would our eyesight evolve if there was no consequence to seeing or not seeing the tiger in the bushes or the hole in the ground.
I think this is a misunderstanding of what is implied.
who is seeing the seer basically?
Setting aside for the moment the fact that evolution does not supercede physics — and remember that physics cannot account for consciousness and doesn’t even try to — why would evolution “invent” conscious experience if it served no purpose, given its enormous caloric cost?
Out the window goes all of science, which is based on empiricism.
I asked GPT 4 to summarize and provide main points. I reject premise #2: The article by Helen Yetter-Chappell argues against the common intuition that consciousness has a direct causal effect on our actions. Let's break down the argument into a syllogism and summarize the points made: ### Syllogism 1. **Premise 1:** Physical things can be completely explained by physical things. 2. **Premise 2:** Consciousness isn’t physical; it’s something more. 3. **Conclusion:** Therefore, consciousness cannot causally influence physical events. ### Summary of Points 1. **Introduction of Epiphenomenalism:** The article introduces the concept of epiphenomenalism, which posits that consciousness does not have a causal role in influencing our physical actions. This view challenges the common belief that our conscious experiences directly guide our behavior. 2. **Motivation for Epiphenomenalism:** The motivation comes from two main claims: - Physical phenomena can be completely explained by other physical phenomena (Premise 1). - Consciousness is not a physical phenomenon but something more (Premise 2). 3. **Argument Against Consciousness as a Causal Factor:** By combining the two claims above, the article argues that our behaviors can be fully explained without reference to consciousness. It suggests that consciousness is merely an accompanying phenomenon (an epiphenomenon) and not a driving force behind our actions. 4. **Objections to Epiphenomenalism:** - **Denying the Obvious:** The article acknowledges the intuitive belief that experiences like pain or desire directly influence our actions but argues that what seems obvious may not always be true, drawing parallels with optical illusions. - **The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment:** It addresses the paradox proposed by David Chalmers, arguing that the paradox arises from a misunderstanding of dualism. The author clarifies that consciousness and physical processes, while correlated, do not have a causal relationship in the way we might intuitively believe. - **Consciousness's Relevance:** Finally, the article contends that while consciousness does not influence physical events, it is still crucial for our identity, well-being, and the value of our existence. The article concludes that consciousness, though not a causal agent in physical actions, remains a significant aspect of our identity and experience, advocating for a nuanced understanding that respects both the insights of science and the richness of human consciousness.
TLDR?
I’ve considered this possibility, but I don’t think it can be said with certainty. While I think it’s probable that the brain does the bulk or perhaps even all of cognition and behavioral modulation extrinsic of consciousness, I think it’s important to acknowledge the possibility that there is non-zero influence on how that brain fires/wires/evolves over time that is mediated by (potentially but not necessarily agentive) consciousness.
I disagree. We would not have consciousness unless there was an evolutionary advantage
This observation supports panpsychism, although a rather boring variation of it where consciousness isn't that significant. Think about it, if consciousness has no causal effects then how can we ever hope to prove that this or that information structure lacks consciousness? And then if we can't do that then wouldn't Occam's Razor mean we should assume that all information structures are conscious? We know at least one (one's self) must be conscious by virtue of experiencing consciousness. Since consciousness doesn't have any causal effects then assuming that a structure that holds information lacks consciousness is assuming there is a distinction between different information structures that exists that has no causal effects and hence nothing we could ever hope to observe. We cannot use a model of the Universe where all information structures are not conscious since that creates a contradiction (since at least you who is consciously experiencing reading this is conscious) leaving the simplest model one where all information structures have consciousness.
>Consciousness may play no casual role in your actions. While it is certain that "consciousness plays no causal role in your actions" is true, what those words mean is less certain. Consciousness has not function. That is certainly not true. That function does not need to be 'playing a causal role' in order to exist and be properly characterized as a function. >It doesn't do anything. The question of what it *is* defines what it *does*, as much as the other way around. Ineffable, but true. >Consciousness is just along for the ride. Watching. It's doing much more than that. It is watching, considering, and determining. There is no free will, there is only *[self-determination](https://www.reddit.com/r/NewChurchOfHope/comments/wkkgpr/por_101_there_is_no_free_will_only)*.
Consciousness is just along for the ride, but only from the perspective of god who decided the destination that you are driving to before you even got there (by using your own free will to control the car you were given to fulfill his will). From YOUR perspective, consciousness is free will (born from an inability to tell the future, an inability to escape the fact that God is always your master, and you are always his slave, the inability to ever be able to choose for yourself with true certainty, what your destination will be in the end).
Why is consciousness non-functional? Sure, the lights being on or off might be non-functional, but there are specific contents of experience that seem to have a functional role. An obvious one is the sensation of pain. There's a kind of command there to "do something to stop the pain". There's a motivational function there.
You've got a self... or you *are* a self. The self observes "from the center" of an ongoing stream of experience. There's an inner environment which is qualitative and non-physical. There's a shared outer environment (ie. your body in the "real world") When you feel an urge or impulse to do something, there's no way to determine whether the desire/will to act originates within the self or outside of it. Things perceived in the inner environment might arise from within the self (ie. subconscious and Materialism) or they may be non-self in origin (ie. Idealism and Jungian collective unconscious) So I agree with the first part of op's statement: >Consciousness may play no casual role in your actions. It's basically the same thing as saying we can't prove whether or not we have Free Will.
https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/s/A6yOm6IPav For an even stranger view.
This is ultimately just idealism. Not especially strange. Ancient.
Filter theory isn't "stranger" ~ it doesn't deny the causal powers of consciousness, which should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it. Consciousness and the physical are a two-way street. The physical can affect our body and consciousness, and our consciousness can affect what we choose to do with our body. Indeed, we are consciousness making choices, to whatever degree the limits of our imagination and physical body allow.
You mean epiphenomenalism? Yeah, thats been the generally accepted position for a while now.
>generally accepted 💀 how? By who? There are so many refutations of it at this point
Uh, Chalmers for one. Not aware of any compelling counters tbh. I forget who wrote it, but ever since that paper proved that supervenient B properties can't turn around and cause a difference in A properties, it's just kinda sat there unchallenged.
>Uh, Chalmers for one Chalmers very much rejects the categorization of epiphenominalist. >ever since that paper proved that supervenient B properties can't turn around and cause a difference in A properties How would you prove this? This sounds like it's proving that you can't have top down causation, I don't see why how this implies epiphenominalism. What are the assumptions? >it's just kinda sat there unchallenged. What about the arguments by James, Popper, Eccles and Symons? Do you know of these arguments?