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Vaniver comments on Philosophical schools are approaches not positions - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: casebash 09 October 2015 09:46AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 12 October 2015 08:08:12PM 0 points [-]

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.

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?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 13 October 2015 10:53:17AM 1 point [-]

"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

Comment author: Vaniver 13 October 2015 03:00:27PM 0 points [-]

Thanks!

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