Do I understand epiphenomenalism now?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Dodge, the idea is that the subjective experience of the quale is supposed to be richer, in some sense, than whatever the experience of the brain event is. The brain event allows us to see red, for example, but the quale gives us the "redness of red." But if the quale is causally inefficacious, then what would cause us ever to bring up the subject of qualia in the first place? How could we talk about the redness of red if the experience of that quale had no effect on our memory?

... that say things like "when such-and-such a brain process occurs, such-and-such a quale will be felt."['quote]
Felt, perhaps, but not remembered. And thus not discussed.

~~ Paul

 

[Eleatic Stranger]

I don't think the link between brain processes and qualia is necessary; it's just how the world happens to work, the same as any other natural law. There are well-known natural laws that say things like "energy is conserved," and there are also other natural laws, the precise details of which have yet to be discovered, that say things like "when such-and-such a brain process occurs, such-and-such a quale will be felt."

Ok, but then you run into a very serious problem - which is how to demonstrate the existence of that law. (And, technically, if it's a natural law then that's a necessary connection too - it's just contingently necessary. It still has to be shown that, given the way the world is, there's a necessary connection there.)

Or, in other words, as you've put it it is actually a necessary link, which is an appealing position to be able to take - but also one fraught with a wide range of dificulties (those being, in many cases, the motivating factors for an epiphenomenal account).

 

[Loki]

Paul,

Does anyone have a clue what philosophers really mean by epiphenomenalism?

NO. Er.. I mean, Yes. Oh, wait ... can I change my answer back to No? Hmmm ... perhaps it's related to p-epiphenomenalism ?(you know, what p-zombies discuss but don't p-experience when they argue about p-philosophy).

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Eleatic Stranger
Ok, but then you run into a very serious problem - which is how to demonstrate the existence of that law.

What do you mean by "demonstrate"? We don't demonstrate it using logical proof; we demonstrate it using experimentation, just like any other scientific theory.

(And, technically, if it's a natural law then that's a necessary connection too - it's just contingently necessary. It still has to be shown that, given the way the world is, there's a necessary connection there.)

"Contingently necessary"?

I am definitely not up on philosophical jargon, it seems.

Anyway, how does one show, for example, that given the way the world is, objects necessarily follow geodesics in spacetime? One doesn't, really. That's a fundamental postulate of general relativity. It is an axiom, not a theorem. According to GR, it is how the world is; it's not something that's derived from how the world is.

Any scientific theory starts from some axioms, which are not logically derived from anything else. They are accepted because, if one accepts them, lots of true things can be derived and few false things can be. The goal is to find a few simple axioms from which everything true can be derived and nothing false can be. But you need to start somewhere; you can't derive anything from nothing at all. There will always remain something about which we can say nothing more than, "this, apparently, is simply how the world is."

Or, in other words, as you've put it it is actually a necessary link, which is an appealing position to be able to take - but also one fraught with a wide range of dificulties (those being, in many cases, the motivating factors for an epiphenomenal account).

Can you elaborate on what you see as the difficulty? The motivating factors are, (1) we're conscious, yet (2) whenever we look closely, we find that we, including our brains, follow physical laws. So what causal role is left for things like our will? None, it would seem. Hence, epiphenomenalism. Is that too simplistic?

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Dodge, the idea is that the subjective experience of the quale is supposed to be richer, in some sense, than whatever the experience of the brain event is. The brain event allows us to see red, for example, but the quale gives us the "redness of red."

I don't understand. Red isn't red, if it has no redness.

The experience caused by the brain event is precisely the quale. They're just two different names for the same thing.

But if the quale is causally inefficacious, then what would cause us ever to bring up the subject of qualia in the first place?

The same brain that caused us to experience the qualia to begin with.

How could we talk about the redness of red if the experience of that quale had no effect on our memory?

What kind of effect do you think it should have? I guess you agree that any memory is stored, in some purely physical way, in our brain. So, why should the brain process that originally resulted in our seeing red, not be able to effect whatever change to our brain is necessary for us later to remember having seen red?

If brains can cause us to see red, they can cause us to remember having seen red.

In fact, sometimes they cause us to remember things that didn't even happen! How do you explain that? It obviously isn't the original experience that caused us to remember it, because there was no original experience. It's just our brains doing funny stuff. The regular stuff they do is pretty funny too.

Felt, perhaps, but not remembered. And thus not discussed.

It's not stored in memory as a quale. (What would that even mean? A quale must be experienced, to be a quale. Stored memories are not experienced until they're recalled.) But if our brains can recreate qualia on demand, that's good enough. Remembering an experience is itself just another type of experience, so why can't our brains, alone, produce it as easily as any other kind of experience?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Dodge said:
I don't understand. Red isn't red, if it has no redness.

It is if you have blindsight.

The experience caused by the brain event is precisely the quale. They're just two different names for the same thing.

Philosophers appear to define quale as that conscious, personal experience of redness. There are other brain events that occur when you see red that are not part of the quale. A really good example of this is Capgras syndrome, where a person can recoginize his mother but is convinced that she is an impostor. The "familiarity quale" is gone.

The same brain that caused us to experience the qualia to begin with [would cause us to bring up the subject of qualia].

But not if the quale was an experience over and above the brain event, which is what epiphenomenalism assumes (I think). That additional portion has no effect on the brain, and thus could not be discussed.

What kind of effect do you think it should have? I guess you agree that any memory is stored, in some purely physical way, in our brain. So, why should the brain process that originally resulted in our seeing red, not be able to effect whatever change to our brain is necessary for us later to remember having seen red?

I see no reason why it shouldn't, but that is not what epiphenomenalism says. Remember, I am arguing that epiphenomenalism is incoherent, at least if the definitions I read are correct.

~~ Paul

 

[Eleatic Stranger]

What do you mean by "demonstrate"? We don't demonstrate it using logical proof; we demonstrate it using experimentation, just like any other scientific theory."Contingently necessary"?

I am definitely not up on philosophical jargon, it seems.

Anyway, how does one show, for example, that given the way the world is, objects necessarily follow geodesics in spacetime? One doesn't, really. That's a fundamental postulate of general relativity. It is an axiom, not a theorem. According to GR, it is how the world is; it's not something that's derived from how the world is.

Ah, but here you're just restating the problem that one starts with - which is of course why I asked it. How would you experiment on this?

"Ok Mr Jones, I've just shown you a red card - now tell me, did you actually experience the qualitative sensation of redness or are you simply instantiating brain events as a result of causal interactions with this red card which will cause you to act in certain ways distinctive of someone who has just been shown a red card?"

After all, this was kind of the problem about those qualitative states in the first place....We really are forced to come up with some sort of argument (as the problem is the lack of physical evidence that could, logically, tell one way or the other.)

Also - why should the idea of contingent necessity be particularly confusing? It's necessarily true that, given the way the universe is, certain propositions will be true about it. It's not necessarily true, though, that the universe is the way it is -- merely contingently true. (Now, clearly, there are statements about the way the universe is that are just, automatically, necessarily true -- but the point is that not all of them are, and that the supposed relation of qualitative states/brain states seems to look like one of those, barring any good argument.)

Any scientific theory starts from some axioms, which are not logically derived from anything else. They are accepted because, if one accepts them, lots of true things can be derived and few false things can be. The goal is to find a few simple axioms from which everything true can be derived and nothing false can be. But you need to start somewhere; you can't derive anything from nothing at all. There will always remain something about which we can say nothing more than, "this, apparently, is simply how the world is."Can you elaborate on what you see as the difficulty? The motivating factors are, (1) we're conscious, yet (2) whenever we look closely, we find that we, including our brains, follow physical laws. So what causal role is left for things like our will? None, it would seem. Hence, epiphenomenalism. Is that too simplistic?

Er, first off you better mean that "no false things can be derived from it", or at least I would hope so, as deriving a falsehood from a set of axioms is kind of, you know, a problem. (Perhaps "they are accepted because, if one accepts them, lots of true things can be derived, though not all true things." was what you were intending?)

Also, no it's not too simplistic, at least not for a first statement of the problem -- that is to a certain extent the motivating problem involved. However, 'the will' is probably the worst possible choice, as you're importing an awful lot of baggage in with that -- generally qualia are used, or beliefs, or something that it's easier to deal with but are equally problematic (in this way).

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
It is if you have blindsight.

I'm not sure what you mean. Someone with blindsight doesn't have the same experience when looking at a red object as someone with normal vision does.

Philosophers appear to define quale as that conscious, personal experience of redness. There are other brain events that occur when you see red that are not part of the quale.

Sure, that's how I'm using the word "quale" too. I wouldn't even say "other brain events", just "brain events". Although a certain brain event might always be accompanied by a certain conscious experience, it seems useful to be able to talk about one or the other, separately.

But not if the quale was an experience over and above the brain event, which is what epiphenomenalism assumes (I think). That additional portion has no effect on the brain, and thus could not be discussed.

I still don't understand this argument. If I discuss today an experience that I had yesterday, it feels like I'm talking "about" yesterday's experience. (And how, you ask, could I do that, if yesterday's experience had no effect on my brain?) But is that really true? Is it really yesterday's experience that's causing me to talk? All that's really happening today is that I'm having another experience---caused by processes in my brain, as every experience is---namely, the experience that we call "remembering something that happened yesterday". And today's experience doesn't have quite as close a connection to yesterday's as we might suppose, because it's possible to have the same experience of "remembering something that happened yesterday" even when the thing didn't in fact happen yesterday.

So, then, it's not such a stretch to say that today's experience has no direct connection to yesterday's, the only connection being the indirect one of both experiences being caused by the same brain.

Correlation is not causation, and all that ...

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

If "qualia" are considered to arise from physical brain states, but have no effect on the physical world, then any experiences that we can talk about do not involve qualia. The act of communication is a physical one - if an experience can change what we communicate, it does affect the physical world. Any thoughts that we can communicate or communicate about are also part of the physical world and thus cannot deal with qualia.

In short, that definition of "qualia" is utterly useless, devoid of meaning, and logically incoherent (it's considering the existence of something which as a consequence of its assigned properties does not exist).

Also, a majority of philosophers are idiots. I believe this assertion has been sufficiently demonstrated to be given the status of an empirical truth.

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Eleatic Stranger
Ah, but here you're just restating the problem that one starts with - which is of course why I asked it. How would you experiment on this?

"Ok Mr Jones, I've just shown you a red card - now tell me, did you actually experience the qualitative sensation of redness or are you simply instantiating brain events as a result of causal interactions with this red card which will cause you to act in certain ways distinctive of someone who has just been shown a red card?"

After all, this was kind of the problem about those qualitative states in the first place....We really are forced to come up with some sort of argument (as the problem is the lack of physical evidence that could, logically, tell one way or the other.)

I'm not trying to experimentally refute solipsism. I don't see how one could do that. I'm supposing that people are conscious; the only question is, does consciousness affect stuff or is it just an epiphenomenon?

If we come up with a scientific theory about how the brain works, and the theory doesn't involve influences of consciousness on the brain, and we find experimentally that the brain behaves as the theory predicts it should, then that is support for epiphenomenalism, it seems to me.

Also - why should the idea of contingent necessity be particularly confusing? It's necessarily true that, given the way the universe is, certain propositions will be true about it. It's not necessarily true, though, that the universe is the way it is -- merely contingently true.

Yeah, I figured you meant something like that. It just sounded funny, that's all. No offense intended.

Er, first off you better mean that "no false things can be derived from it", or at least I would hope so, as deriving a falsehood from a set of axioms is kind of, you know, a problem. (Perhaps "they are accepted because, if one accepts them, lots of true things can be derived, though not all true things." was what you were intending?)

No, I knew what I was saying. I meant that if we have a scientific theory that explains a lot, we don't throw it out if we find something it can't explain, until we have a better theory to replace it with. We just say, it doesn't work in this case, we don't know why, but we'll continue to use it where it does work because what else can we do in the meantime?

However, 'the will' is probably the worst possible choice, as you're importing an awful lot of baggage in with that -- generally qualia are used, or beliefs, or something that it's easier to deal with but are equally problematic (in this way).

Ok, I'll take your word on that. I don't really know. The "will" seemed like the thing that one would most expect to have direct effects on stuff, rather than be an epiphenomenon.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Also, a majority of philosophers are idiots. I believe this assertion has been sufficiently demonstrated to be given the status of an empirical truth.

lol! maybe you just gave up trying to understand some philosophical concepts?

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
If "qualia" are considered to arise from physical brain states, but have no effect on the physical world, then any experiences that we can talk about do not involve qualia.

What does it mean to talk "about" something? Maybe we just talk.

The act of communication is a physical one - if an experience can change what we communicate, it does affect the physical world.

Change compared to what? Compared to a physically identical person who has no conscious experiences? Maybe, if there were such a person, he would say the same things we do.

Any thoughts that we can communicate or communicate about are also part of the physical world and thus cannot deal with qualia.

What does "deal with" mean? How do you decide what a communication deals with?

In short, that definition of "qualia" is utterly useless, devoid of meaning, and logically incoherent (it's considering the existence of something which as a consequence of its assigned properties does not exist).

No, it's considering the existence of something which as a consequence of its assigned properties we can't be sure exists in other people. I don't see how to convince a solipsist that he's wrong, but is that the topic of discussion here?

 

[Eleatic Stranger]

Also, a majority of philosophers are idiots. I believe this assertion has been sufficiently demonstrated to be given the status of an empirical truth.

1. "I have briefly read summaries of various Philosophers and I don't understand what they are talking about or why they think it's important!"

2. "Therefore: Philosophers are idiots."

Yeah. That's a real convincing sort of rationale you've got going there buddy.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

What does it mean to talk "about" something? Maybe we just talk.

I would respond to what you said, but it was merely a sequence of symbols produced by random acts of typing. Too bad you're not typing "about" something.

Change compared to what? Compared to a physically identical person who has no conscious experiences?

What "conscious experiences"? People's behavior changes according to the events that happen to them, but I'm not familiar with the "conscious experience" you assert they possess.

Maybe, if there were such a person, he would say the same things we do.

Then if it's possible to behave as if one had these unspecified "conscious experiences" without actually having them, what makes you so sure that people have them in the first place?

What does "deal with" mean? How do you decide what a communication deals with?

Yes, very much so, thank you. No, I'm stuffed, and couldn't have another helping. It was delicious.

I don't see how to convince a solipsist that he's wrong, but is that the topic of discussion here?

The only way in which solipsists are wrong is that they believe they're making a meaningful assertion that makes a distinction instead of a tautology that is equivalent to every other valid position.

And as for whether that's the topic of discussion, I can't decide what a communication deals with, so I can't answer your question. I can't even know that you asked that question.

 

[hammegk]

People's behavior changes according to the events that happen to them, but I'm not familiar with the "conscious experience" you assert they possess.

Restating the obvious in your case.

Somebody needs a better sock, or needs to get one.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Dodge said:
I'm not sure what you mean. Someone with blindsight doesn't have the same experience when looking at a red object as someone with normal vision does.

Indeed. The blindsighted person can see red objects, but does not experience "redness." So then let's say that it is this redness that philosophers refer to as qualia, and that this qualia is causally inefficacious. That is the best I can do to understand what they are talking about regarding epiphenomenalism.

So, if qualia are truly causually inefficacious, we would have no way to talk about this redness, yet we are.

~~ Paul

 

[Loki]

Win once suggested an analogy for demonstrating some of this epiphenomenalitisabilitisicism. Imagine always walking towards a bright light. You cast a shadow behind you. Changes in your posture and movement cause changes in your shadow. But since you always face the light you never actually see your shadow. It's always there, doesn't or cause "affect" your movements.

Fine I guess - but I still don't see why Win then claims that I am "interanlly aware" of the existence of this shadaow, or how I can discuss anything about this shadow. I have, after all, never actually seen it.

So...no, I guess I don't understand epipehnomenalism.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Shall we move on to the Knowledge Argument?

I'll ask every philosopher I meet at TAM about epiphenomenalism. That should make me popular.

~~ Paul

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Indeed. The blindsighted person can see red objects, but does not experience "redness." So then let's say that it is this redness that philosophers refer to as qualia, and that this qualia is causally inefficacious. That is the best I can do to understand what they are talking about regarding epiphenomenalism.

Yes, that matches my understanding.

So, if qualia are truly causually inefficacious, we would have no way to talk about this redness, yet we are.

We would have no way to talk about it? Or, looking at things from the opposite side, are we in fact talking about it?

What do we say about redness that a nonconscious robot couldn't say? (Robots don't experience any qualia, so they certainly don't experience causally efficacious ones.)

Of course, then you can ask, how do we know that other people aren't nonconscious robots? Fine. Good question. But it's a different question.

I think we don't really know that other people are conscious. It just feels like we know it. So, I don't find philosophical arguments convincing which say, things must be a certain way because if they were otherwise, we wouldn't know that other people are conscious. Perhaps we don't know that other people are conscious.

That's not to say they aren't, of course. Just that we don't know for sure that they are.

 

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Loki
Win once suggested an analogy for demonstrating some of this epiphenomenalitisabilitisicism. Imagine always walking towards a bright light. You cast a shadow behind you. Changes in your posture and movement cause changes in your shadow. But since you always face the light you never actually see your shadow. It's always there, doesn't or cause "affect" your movements.

Fine I guess - but I still don't see why Win then claims that I am "interanlly aware" of the existence of this shadaow, or how I can discuss anything about this shadow. I have, after all, never actually seen it.

But suppose you know that light travels in straight lines. Then, you can deduce what the shape and position of the shadow is, and you can discuss it meaningfully even though you've never seen it. It isn't the shadow itself that causes you to talk about it; it's your knowledge of how it was produced.

Similarly, if your brain can cause you to experience qualia, why can it not cause you to talk meaningfully about those qualia? Why do we need to say that the qualia themselves cause you to talk about them? The qualia and your discussion of them have a common cause---namely, your brain---so the correlation between them is understandable without having to say that one caused the other.