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From: kovsky@netcom.com (Bob Kovsky)
Subject: Re: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete? quantized?
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Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 18:32:57 GMT
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In the previous article, Vic Cinc wrote (among other matters): 

>
>if consciousness is an epiphenomena of the brains neural net. then what
>is so special about this bit of software that make it conscious
>and the software under silicon apparently not? 

	An "epiphenomenon" has no consequential effect on anything, an
information sink, so to speak.  Consciousness, on the other hand, is
seriously consequential:  compare your ability to do something while
consciously attending to it with your ability to do the same thing
unconsciously. 

	A model of causal determinism necessarily reduces consciousness 
to an epiphenomenon.  This is because such a model is unable to deal with 
the "mind-body problem" as presenting an <interactive> system in which 
non-material experience has a consequential effect on material bodies.  
The reality is, however, that non-material experience does have a 
consequential effect on material bodies.  Scientific dogmatists argue 
otherwise, by assuming that "scientific laws" are universally valid.

	In addition to the common-sense fact that non-material experience 
has a consequential effect on material bodies, consider the following.  
The construction of conscious experience would appear to require a 
substantial apparatus.  Why waste all that material and energy on an 
"epiphenomenon?"
-- 

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    Bob Kovsky          |  A Natural Science of Freedom 
    kovsky@netcom.com   |  Materials available by anonymous ftp
                        |  At ftp.netcom.com/pub/fr/freedom
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