Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Is CONSCIOUSNESS continuous? discrete? quantized?
Message-ID: <D4o8rs.92F@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <departedD3vKy5.M3B@netcom.com> <departedD437At.FxE@netcom.com> <D4CBxB.I5z@ucc.su.oz.au> <kovskyD4D4uy.1nn@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 18:31:04 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <kovskyD4D4uy.1nn@netcom.com>, Bob Kovsky <kovsky@netcom.com> wrote:
:
>	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.
>
Could you give an example of a "non-material" experience and an example of it
having "consequential effect" on material bodies?

>	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?"

A lot of "common-sense" facts turn out to be false when looked at more closely.
>-- 
>    Bob Kovsky          |  A Natural Science of Freedom 

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
