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TheAncientGeek comments on Philosophical schools are approaches not positions - Less Wrong Discussion
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In this context, everything "inside the universe" has an effect, directly or indirectly, on other things in the universe. This means being 'in the same universe' isn't a symmetric relationship--if A and B can both affect C, but not be affected by C or each other, C perceives the universe as containing all three of them, and A and B both perceive the universe as only containing themselves.
This sequence has more.
Let's suppose that C means epiphenomenal consciousness. Now consider:
But consciousness is heard by itself. All the above suggests is that consciousness would perceive a physical universe, ie its universe would contain both itself and matter, wand that is consistent with what is perceived. If consciousness is an epihenomenal dangler, then , by the above, it wouldn't be in the universe as it appears to A and B, taken as physical events. But that just restates what epiphenomenalism state...it's not a contradiciton to anything.
PS: Not a sincere believer in epiphenomenalism. Just pointing out that you can't argue against epiphenomenalism by pointing out that it is epiphenomenalism.
It is a contradiction to the claim that epiphenomenal consciousness is why in-universe bodies discuss the experience of consciousness. That has to be done by phenomenal consciousness, and that strikes me as the only interesting sort of consciousness.
Which would be more significant if epiphenomenalists made that claim. Actually, they don't, they bite the bullet about the issue. But since it is intutive that reports of conscious states are caused by those states, that is an argument against epiphenomenalism..a well known one, which can be expressed a lot more succinctly than EY did.
Phenomenal consciousness contrasts with access consciousness, not epiphomenal consciousness.
If so, I would expect this to come up in one of lukeprog's posts on how LW philosophy is close to positions held in mainstream philosophy, like this one, but I didn't check the whole sequence, and in this case absence of evidence is only weak evidence of absence. What well-known and succinct treatment do you have in mind?
"The most powerful argument against epiphenomenalism is that it is self contradictory: 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. [9]" -- WP
"Epiphenomenalism is absurd; it is just plain obvious that our pains, our thoughts, and our feelings make a difference to our (evidently physical) behavior; it is impossible to believe that all our behavior could be just as it is even if there were no pains, thoughts, or feelings. (Taylor, 1963 and subsequent editions, offers a representative statement.)"--SEP
Thanks!