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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 21:11:45 GMT
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In article <3bvnp1$cum@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>In other words, you are an epiphenomenalist.  You consider consciousness
>to be a mere insignificant side effect.
>
>If I pour hot water onto ice cream, the ice cream melts.  I want to say
>that the heat from the hot water melted the ice cream.  You want to insist
>that the heat did nothing of the kind.  Instead, in your view, the heat
>does no more than preside at meetings at which it is a non-voting
>member, and the kinetic energy of the molecules does all the work.

This description of epiphenomenalism is so good it's been worth
wading though all the junk to get to it.

-- jeff
