Is Epiphenomenalism Irrational?

[seer]

Here is one objection by Roderick Fitts

http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?p=2809

So the upshot, the epiphenomenalist would have us believe that his position is true, or is genuine knowledge, but conscious understanding has nothing to do with with why he holds this position. So conscious knowledge of Epiphenomenalism plays no role in why one may believe in the theory, therefore he has no claim to actual knowledge. Which seems self-refuting.

[The Thinker]

Here is one objection by Roderick Fitts


So the upshot, the epiphenomenalist would have us believe that his position is true, or is genuine knowledge, but conscious understanding has nothing to do with with why he holds this position. So conscious knowledge of Epiphenomenalism plays no role in why one may believe in the theory, therefore he has no claim to actual knowledge. Which seems self-refuting.

Your link is so bad. It says:

what are the arguments and evidence in favor of this position, one might ask?

Strictly speaking, there are none.

This is total nonsense. We have plenty of lines of evidence that epiphenominalism is true. Here is just some of it:

None of the below experiments are explicable on substance dualism/interactionism.

Internally generated preactivation of single neurons in human medial frontal cortex predicts volition.

Highlights:

-Recording the activity of 1019 neurons while twelve subjects performed self-initiated finger movement, this study shows progressive neuronal recruitment over ∼1500 ms before subjects report making the decision to move.
-A population of 256 SMA (supplementary motor area) neurons is sufficient to predict in single trials the impending decision to move with accuracy greater than 80% already 700 ms prior to subjects' awareness. Furthermore, they predict, with a precision of a few hundred ms, the actual time point of this voluntary decision to move.
-Using an SVM classifier to predict the time point at which the subject reported making the decision to move, the algorithm detected the occurrence of the decision in 98% of the trials and only missed W in 2% of the trials.

Reading My Mind

Highlights:

-CBS 60 minutes report from 2009 showing how fMRI imaging can recognize with a high degree of accuracy the contents of thoughts about objects like a hammer, a window, an apartment etc.
-Report reveals there are enough similarities between different people such that once enough people's brains are measured when thinking about an object, a person who never scanned can have their thoughts predicted with 100 percent accuracy when thinking about those objects.

Predicting free choices for abstract intentions

Highlights:

-Researchers are able to show that the outcome of a free decision to either add or subtract numbers can already be decoded from neural activity in medial prefrontal and parietal cortex 4 s before the participant reports they are consciously making their choice.
-Previous findings have been mostly restricted to simple motor choices.
-In the current study, participants were not cued to make decisions at specific points in time but were allowed to make decisions spontaneously. By asking participants to report when they first consciously decided, we could investigate what happened in the brain before the decisions were consciously made. We found that both medial frontopolar cortex and posterior cingulate/precuneus started to encode the specific outcome of the abstract decisions even before they entered conscious awareness. Our results suggest that, in addition to the representation of conscious abstract decisions, the medial frontopolar cortex was also involved in the unconscious preparation of abstract decisions.

Tracking the Unconscious Generation of Free Decisions Using UItra-High Field fMRI

Highlights:

-Researchers show that it was possible to decode the decision outcomes of such free motor decisions from the pole of anterior medial prefrontal cortex (BA 10) and the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), up to 7 s before subjects were aware of their intention.
-Taking into account the temporal delay of the BOLD signal (which is in the order of a few seconds), it is possible that these signals reflect processes up to 10 seconds before the actual decision.

Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

It continues to amaze me how attractive this position still is to many people. I would have thought a historical perspective alone would make this view seem ludicrous: over the centuries, every other phenomenon of initially "supernatural" mysteriousness has succumbed to an uncontroversial explanation within the commodious folds of physical science... The "miracles" of life itself, and of reproduction, are now analyzed into the well-known intricacies of molecular biology. Why should consciousness be any exception? Why should the brain be the only complex physical object in the universe to have an interface with another realm of being? Besides, the notorious problems with the supposed transactions at that dualistic interface are as good as a reductio ad absurdum of the view. The phenomena of consciousness are an admittedly dazzling lot, but I suspect that dualism would never be seriously considered if there weren't such a strong undercurrent of desire to protect the mind from science, by supposing it composed of a stuff that is in principle uninvestigatable by the methods of the physical sciences.

Daniel C. Dennett, "Consciousness in Human and Robot Minds,"

Again, as the great Michael Tooley puts it:
(1) When an individual's brain is directly stimulated and put into a certain physical state, this causes the person to have a corresponding experience.
(2) Certain injuries to the brain make it impossible for a person to have any mental states at all.
(3) Other injuries to the brain destroy various mental capacities. Which capacity is destroyed is tied directly to the particular region of the brain that was damaged.
(4) When we examine the mental capacities of animals, they become more complex as their brains become more complex.
(5) Within any given species, the development of mental capacities is correlated with the development of neurons in the brain
Michael Tooley, "Opening Statement" in William Lane Craig and Michael Tooley debate, "Does God Exist?"

From fundamental science:

Seriously, The Laws Underlying The Physics of Everyday Life Really Are Completely Understood:

To persuade anyone otherwise, you would have to point to something the brain does that is in apparent conflict with the Standard Model or general relativity. (Bending spoons across large distances would qualify.)

So, we have plenty of lines of evidence in support of epiphenomenalsm, and plenty of lines of evidence against interactionism, which is the view that mental properties with no direct physical.

For arguments against interactionism and dualism, see here:

Objections to Dualism Motivated by Scientific Considerations

-Arguments from Human Development
-The Conservation of Energy Argument
-Problems of Interaction
-The Correlation and Dependence Arguments

[seer]

Your link is so bad. It says:

Nonsense Thinker, he is not speaking of scientific arguments, he is speaking of good logical or philosophical, again:

Tell me Thinker, exactly what did he get wrong here?

[The Thinker]

Nonsense Thinker, he is not speaking of scientific arguments, he is speaking of good logical or philosophical, again:

Nonsense? Really? You think none of my empirical evidence means anything? You are on the hook to show how it is wrong, and provide one piece of evidence that
shows your view is true.

If you want to be respected as a rational thinker, you must engage with the evidence against your position. Right now, the evidence puts you in a logical conundrum.

First LFW is incoherent. You basically admitted that, and that you cannot show it to be coherent and decide to believe it on faith. You didn't even try. I can't take you seriously if you do that. Second, LFW is in violation of physics. So you either have to show me how the soul/mind - or whatever you want to call the part of humans that is not matter and energy - is (A) compatible with the Standard Model and gravity, or (B) violates the Standard Model and gravity. If it is compatible, show me where in the Standard Model and gravity does this non-physical thing exist and interact with your atoms. If it isn't compatible, show me where this non-physical thing violates the Standard Model and gravity by pointing to one piece of evidence that demonstrates this.

Of course you will never even try, because your views are faith based and you cannot be taken seriously.

Tell me Thinker, exactly what did he get wrong here?

Beliefs are brain events and brain events are causally efficacious. So right there in his first sentence he's wrong. He's assuming a dualistic ontology in his criticism of epiphenomenalism, and then tries to claim the latter is incoherent. That's like me assuming an atheistic ontology and then criticizing theism because it's inconsistent with it. How foolish can you be?

[seer]

Beliefs are brain events and brain events are causally efficacious. So right there in his first sentence he's wrong. He's assuming a dualistic ontology in his criticism of epiphenomenalism, and then tries to claim the latter is incoherent. That's like me assuming an atheistic ontology and then criticizing theism because it's inconsistent with it. How foolish can you be?

But epiphenomenalism is dualistic, you told me that yourself, that brain states were not the same as mental states. I believe you called it property dualism. But the larger point is how can you claim knowledge if our conscious understanding plays not role in understanding? This would also apply to your scientific studies, and all knowledge,

[The Thinker]

But epiphenomenalism is dualistic, you told me that yourself, that brain states were not the same as mental states. I believe you called it property dualism. But the larger point is how can you claim knowledge if our conscious understanding plays not role in understanding? This would also apply to your scientific studies, and all knowledge,

Property dualism is completely different from substance dualism. It describes the same thing -- the brain, and says that it has both physical and non-physical properties. It doesn't say that there is some kind of space ghost floating inside your body like the substance dualists believe. It says each mental event is identical with a physical event. And as such, when the brain processes information properly and understands something, the consciousness does too.

Your view has many unanswered puzzles that you have not even attempted to explain:

(1) How can people have parasomnia, a condition where people can act and behave normally, and even commit murder, without even being consciously aware? If consciousness is what makes people animated due to the soul, this would be inexplicable on your view.

(2) You still need to explain how it is possible for the soul to interact with the physical body in a way that is either (a) compatible with the Standard model of physics, or (b) incompatible with the Standard model of physics. Is the soul is compatible with the Standard model of physics, then it must use only the forces within it - electromagnetism, strong/weak nuclear forces. But these forces are no different in your body then any thing else, like a rock. If the soul is incompatible with the Standard model of physics, then it must violate it, which means we should be violating the laws of physics every second we're awake. But no study shows this, so you'd need to provide empirical data showing a true violation.

(3) How are animals able to behave and exhibit basic levels of rationality and react appropriately to their environment if they have no souls and are just made of atoms? The mere existence of a monkey doing math would violate your whole view. Instinct cannot explain this.

Basically you have a dilemma that you must deal with in order for thoughtful people to take your views seriously. You cannot just ignore them and keep asserting your view is correct like a broken record.

[seer]

Property dualism is completely different from substance dualism. It describes the same thing -- the brain, and says that it has both physical and non-physical properties. It doesn't say that there is some kind of space ghost floating inside your body like the substance dualists believe. It says each mental event is identical with a physical event. And as such, when the brain processes information properly and understands something, the consciousness does too.

Nonsense Thinker, how many times have you told me that our conscious understanding plays NO ROLE in the the process. So how does our consciousness understand anything, if it plays no role, including the ability to understand? Now you are changing your mind? That introspection does play a role in discovering truism or knowledge?

And it goes something like this: If we have knowledge about epiphenomenalism, then we know about the existence of the mind, but if epiphenomenalism were correct, then we should not have any knowledge about the mind, as it does not affect anything physical.

How is that coherent concerning any knowledge claim.

Basically you have a dilemma that you must deal with in order for thoughtful people to take your views seriously. You cannot just ignore them and keep asserting your view is correct like a broken record.

This thread is about epiphenomenalism.

[The Thinker]

Nonsense Thinker, how many times have you told me that our conscious understanding plays NO ROLE in the the process. So how does our consciousness understand anything, if it plays no role, including the ability to understand? Now you are changing your mind? That introspection does play a role in discovering truism or knowledge?

And it goes something like this: If we have knowledge about epiphenomenalism, then we know about the existence of the mind, but if epiphenomenalism were correct, then we should not have any knowledge about the mind, as it does not affect anything physical.


How is that coherent concerning any knowledge claim.

Once again you aren't listening to me. On epiphenominalism we can consciously understand things, but only if and when our brains process that information correctly. Our conscious knowledge of something is the product of a certain brain state. So if we have knowledge about epiphenominalism and epiphenominalism were correct, this would not in any way preclude our ability to have any knowledge about the mind. The brain states effect things that are physical, and different brain states produce different conscious states of understanding.

This thread is about epiphenomenalism.

Nonsense seer. If you want me to believe in substance dualism you have some major dilemmas. Science has already demonstrated your view is false and basic logic can tell us that your view is incoherent. The existence of a chimpanzee proves your view is wrong. Who can take you seriously?

[seer]

Once again you aren't listening to me. On epiphenominalism we can consciously understand things, but only if and when our brains process that information correctly. Our conscious knowledge of something is the product of a certain brain state. So if we have knowledge about epiphenominalism and epiphenominalism were correct, this would not in any way preclude our ability to have any knowledge about the mind. The brain states effect things that are physical, and different brain states produce different conscious states of understanding.

So our conscious understanding plays a role in discovering or knowing facts? Didn't you tell me that rational deliberation or introspection played no role?

[The Thinker]

So our conscious understanding plays a role in discovering or knowing facts? Didn't you tell me that rational deliberation or introspection played no role?

You're not listening to me yet again. Surprise. Our conscious understanding is the product of a certain brain state that is the brain processing information properly. And that of course plays a major role in discovering or knowing facts.

[seer]

You're not listening to me yet again. Surprise. Our conscious understanding is the product of a certain brain state that is the brain processing information properly. And that of course plays a major role in discovering or knowing facts.

How exactly does our conscious understanding play a role? What does it do?

[Just Passing Through]

[seer]

Well I think we can agree on this Just...

[The Thinker]

How exactly does our conscious understanding play a role? What does it do?

When we consciously understand something, it means our brain processed information correctly. The two cannot be separated. The consciousness is just a side effect of this that is impossible without accurate brain states.

I don't think P-zombies are metaphysically possible.

[seer]

When we consciously understand something, it means our brain processed information correctly. The two cannot be separated. The consciousness is just a side effect of this that is impossible without accurate brain states.

No Thinker, I asked how exactly does our conscious understanding play a role? What does it do?

I don't think P-zombies are metaphysically possible.

The point of philosophical zombies is not whether they are metaphysically possible, but that logically you could not know. With Epiphenomenalism the person you are speaking with could have all the same rational reactions that one would expect without the same mental or conscious life that we experience.