On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:54:26 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 04 Feb 2014, at 12:46, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On 4 February 2014 22:32, Bruno Marchal <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > > >>> My view is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal it's meaningless > >>> to > >>> ask why bodies emit utterances referring to the epiphenomenon. > >> > >> > >> > >> 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. > > Not sure if a body can refer to anything (but we can say that, as an > abuse of language to be short). > > The question, it seems to me, remains: why a person (using her body) > could not refer to an epiphenomenon? > Why would that be meaningless? Why asking those question would be > meaningless? > > If I tell you "I feel myself conscious right now"? Is that meaningless? > It is meaningless that I hope you find that plausible? > > And is it meaningless to ask such question? > > May be, that's possible, but I need some justification. Without it, it > looks just like "don't try to understand, don't search, don't ask". > > I do think that the modal logic will provide a *very* powerful tool to > see many nuances and possibilities in this context. > > > > > > >> Ah, but then it looks like if there is a two way road, and > >> consciousness is > >> only a phenomenon. A quite peculiar one, as it relates 3p and 1p, > >> but still > >> a phenomenon, and it this leads to make physics also a 1p > >> phenomenon, why > >> not? > >> > >> Why do you think we gain by making consciousness into an > >> epiphenomenon? > > > > We don't have to explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet > > we can still refer to it. > > May be we cannot [explain why it apparently has no effect on matter > yet we can still refer to it]. > > But if that is the case, the question remains: why? And here, comp, > and the arithmetization of metarithmetic, can explain, for similar > questions, why we cannot explain some truth. > > I think we can't decide that something does not need to be explained, > above the more elementary assumptions. >
I think we must explain the elementary assumptions also, and then we find that sense can only be self-explanatory. Nothing else can be self explanatory because explanation itself can't be anything other than a way of making sense. > I think that is Craig's fuel, and no comp fuel, to take sense has > fundamental. Epiphenomenalism has also that air of "let us not try to > understand". > I think that if you aren't seeing that sense is fundamental, it is because you have stopped questioning it when you get to a comfortable level of objective-seeming simplicity. I'm seeing simplicity itself as a concept - a quality which is revealed not by some mechanism, but by sanity itself - a sanity shared by all phenomena without having to be taught or practiced like arithmetic. Craig > > You confirm my feeling that "epiphenomenalism" is used by admitting or > introducing a bet on an explanation gap. Some explanation gap is there > indeed, but I think we can entirely explain it. This leads to a sort > of miracle: consciousness has a role, even in the physical events. > Mind can "act" on matter. (cf atomic bombs and computers), and this > without violating the physical laws. But eventually it makes the > physical laws emerging on something non physical (which comp allows to > limit on arithmetical truth or combinators truth, ...). > > Bruno > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- 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.
