Why Epiphenomenalism Must be Wrong

When i read and look what philosophers say and write, i notice they still take epiphenomenalism as a serious option, although they do not necessarily believe in it. In this video i try to show that even the possibility of epiphenomenalism is based on a mistake.

Please comment!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• epiphenomenalism
• mind
• body
• dualism
• interactionism
• monism
• materialism
• immaterial
• material
• daniel
• dennett
• david
• chalmers

[TeChNoWC]

Epiphenomenalism is not simply saying their is an 'immaterial' world because we can 'sense' it. The idea of an immaterial world is not fundamental to epiphenomenal theory. The primary reason people are convinced of epiphenomenalism is usually nothing to do with a belief in dualism at all; but often quite the opposite. It's just acknowledging that consciousness has no bearing on the material, therefore we do not know why it exists. Epiphenomenalists still disagree on the issue of its origin.

[hurtafly]

Epiphenomenalism is not committed to substance dualism. You can be an epiphenomenalist and hold an attribute dualist view instead, positing that consciousness has a materially irreducible property, without saying that the mind and body are two different substances.

Also, I'm pretty sure epiphenomenalism accounts for the causal efficacy of the mental on the mental, contrary to your claim that the immaterial has no causal effect whatsoever.

[bradleytough]

@bradleytough Mayyyybe, you could question the causal process behind literature discussing the immaterial? - Infact, that's a cool idea..hmmm

[bradleytough]

@bradleytough Another thing - How would you explain supervenience?...

Reject the idea of supervenience?

Supervenience is reducible?

[bradleytough]

@bradleytough

1) Immaterial is not causally inert upon the immaterial.

2) Belief is immaterial.

3) Therefore, we can believe in the immaterial.

[bradleytough]

I really like your line of argument. At first...but then it seems to suffer from problems...upon inspection, your line of argument must be along the lines of:

The immaterial is causally inert.

We believe in the immaterial.

Belief is caused by the immaterial.

Belief is material.

If the immaterial is causally inert, the above is impossible.

Epiphenomalism is absurd.

I hope you can see this argument is not sound.

[12309PanduraSt]

Dualists can stick thier qualia up thier epiphenomenalistic asses

[yellowfish555]

i don't see a problem because if the brain generates consciousness than it's not Surprising that the brain has information about it.

i have a problem with epiphenomenalism for other reasons.

[nspeert]

@Gnomefro But evolution is only going to produce outrageous spending when such a thing increases the organism's adaptive value. And for an something to have adaptive value it needs to give rise to effects in the material world, so if epiphenomenal qualia produce no effects in the material world, they couldn't have been selected for.

[nspeert]

@Gnomefro Who says that consciousness is necessary for 'decisions of human like quality?' I can imagine an individual acting entirely as they normally would but lacking consciousness (this is a philosophical zombie). Also, what you say in the second part of your comment contradicts epiphenomenalism. Epiphenomenalism is the view that consciousness lacks causal efficacy with regard to the material world, so the effects of qualia would not be able to include human civilization.