On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 8:57:26 AM UTC-5, stathisp wrote: > > > > On Tuesday, February 4, 2014, David Nyman <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > >> On 4 February 2014 11:46, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > Why? You agree that there is still one way causal link. That is >>> > consciousness is a necessary side, and real, effect of the brain >>> activity. >>> > So why a body could not refer to it meaningfully? >>> >>> It's not that which would be meaningless: it would be meaningless to >>> ask how a body could refer to an epiphenomenon, David's initial >>> question. >> >> >> It is not yet clear to me why you consider such a question meaningless. I >> thought we had established that you really meant to say that consciousness >> could be regarded as an emergent phenomenon, like temperature. Temperature >> can be measured (i.e. detected) quite straightforwardly by reference to >> some physical variable, such as the change in the height of a column of >> mercury. Hence if consciousness is some such phenomenon we should in >> principle be able to measure and detect it extrinsically in an analogous >> way. Are you suggesting then that we are able to refer to our own emergent >> conscious phenomena because our bodies, in effect, are monitoring some such >> physical variable? >> >> David >> > > We can refer to our conscious states because the base phenomena on which > our conscious states supervene cause our vocal cords to move in a > particular way. But it is wrong to say, except in a loose way of speaking, > that our conscious states cause our vocal cords to move. The supervenient > phenomenon follows in a straightforward way (by virtue of being > supervenient) without the need for downward causation. >
We can say instead that the movement of our vocal cords is an appearance of our distant sub-personal conscious experience within the aesthetic tunnel of our personal consciousness. There is no absolute supervenience, and there is no need to amputate downward causation/identity-correlation. Craig > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
