Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!csusac!csus.edu!netcom.com!departed
From: departed@netcom.com (just passing through)
Subject: Re: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete? quantized?
Message-ID: <departedD4DCwn.M5n@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <departedD3vKy5.M3B@netcom.com> <departedD437At.FxE@netcom.com> <D4CBxB.I5z@ucc.su.oz.au> <kovskyD4D4uy.1nn@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 1995 21:26:47 GMT
Lines: 39
Sender: departed@netcom10.netcom.com

In article <kovskyD4D4uy.1nn@netcom.com>, Bob Kovsky <kovsky@netcom.com> wrote:
[...deletia...]
>	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.

Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too.  Perhaps the description
of your mind as "just" an interaction of neurons is perfectly valid,
but simply not a _useful_ description.
It's like calling a book a collection of atoms.  True, but useless.
If consciousness were the 'system dynamics' of neuronal activity,
then this might be the level at which the apparent decoupling of mind
and body takes place, especially if this system has the ability
to perceive/influence/act on dynamics directly.  (An unusual concept,
since we usually think of _things_ being perceived and acted on.)
Hence, yes, it _is_ neuronal activity, but that description is so
reduced as to be nearly meaningless; much more reduced than calling
a river "water going downhill" or an ecosystem "a bunch of organisms".
 
>	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?"

Perhaps causal determinism fails when it believes that finding one
cause (one kind of cause) has 'explained' the phenomenon, and nothing
remains to be said.

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

-- Richard Wesson (departed@netcom.com)

