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MagnetoHydroDynamics comments on The Fabric of Real Things - Less Wrong
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Koan 2:
"Does your rule there forbid epiphenomenalist theories of consciousness - that consciousness is caused by neurons, but doesn't affect those neurons in turn? The classic argument for epiphenomenal consciousness has always been that we can imagine a universe in which all the atoms are in the same place and people behave exactly the same way, but there's nobody home - no awareness, no consciousness, inside the brain. The usual effect of the brain generating consciousness is missing, but consciousness doesn't cause anything else in turn - it's just a passive awareness - and so from the outside the universe looks the same. Now, I'm not so much interested in whether you think epiphenomenal theories of consciousness are true or false - rather, I want to know if you think they're impossible or meaningless a priori based on your rules."
How would you reply?
A one way causal connection cannot be observed. If neurons cause consciousness, but consciousness does absolutely not affect anything else, then there is literally no way to observe consciousness, and so you must in addition to the description of the causal universe include the fact that there are things that are affected by the universe's existence but does not affect the universe, and furthermore that consciousness is one such thing.
A strictly simpler theory is that there is a causal universe, without all that epiphenomea cruft.
Also, the viewpoint of epiphenomenal consciousness is very much triggering my pattern maching of 'human specific inbuilt stupidity'.
How's this different from the case photon leaving my future light cone?
it is different because the mathematical model of the universe makes a mention of the photon, but not of the consciousness.
In a theoretical future version of python, the photon example would be:
While the conssciousness example would be:
On a side note,remember that there are no fundamental photons nor light cones. There is only whatever QFT is the true one; the rest are mathematical consequences.