Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Note: The first article is about epiphenomenalism.
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Consciousness does not cause your actions
https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-do..._auid=2020

INTRO: Motivated by Darwin’s theory of evolution, we think consciousness must have a function. We think consciousness must play some role in our behaviour, and be able to cause and influence what we do. We think about raising our left arm, and then it raises. Surely consciousness has causal power. But this is an illusion, writes Helen Yetter-Chappell.

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The radical conservative case for genetic enhancement
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2024/...hancement/

EXCERPTS: Eventually, a combination of embryo selection and gene editing may be essential just to stay where we are now. This is because the modern world has been quietly fostering the accumulation of deleterious mutations in all of us. [...] Those who reject radical enhancement may need to embrace some amount of genetic engineering simply to stay where we are now. We may need to keep repairing the post just to preserve the parts of it that we cherish.

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The deaths of effective altruism
https://www.wired.com/story/deaths-of-ef...wtab-en-us

EXCERPTS: Effective altruism is the philosophy of Sam Bankman-Fried ... Effective altruism pitches itself as a hyperrational method of using any resource for the maximum good of the world. Here in Silicon Valley, EA has become a secular religion of the elites. ... Before the fall of SBF, the philosophers who founded EA glowed in his glory. Then SBF’s crypto empire crumbled, and his EA employees turned witness against him. The philosopher-founders of EA scrambled to frame Bankman-Fried as a sinner who strayed from their faith. Yet Sam Bankman-Fried is the perfect prophet of EA, the epitome of its moral bankruptcy...
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Quote:Other times, the relation is one of causation. When you come down with the flu, you suffer from a variety of unpleasant symptoms. These symptoms aren’t identical to the virus; rather, they are caused by the virus. Likewise, as the dualist sees it, the functioning of your physical brain isn’t identical to experiences; rather, your brain’s functioning causes us to have experiences.

But then is there EVER really a perception of causation going on anywhere at all? Hume certainly didn't think so. He said we just experience things happening after each other. Correlations iow but no real logical necessity in the correlation that would justify us thinking there was causation going on. We just get used to various repeating correlations in the physical world and that counts as our reason for positing cause and effect existing.

So it seems epiphenomenalism shoots itself in the foot by dismissing consciousness as merely correlative and not causal because the same can be said about any events. There is nothing additional beyond the reason "because that's usually the way it happens" to rationally justify believing in a causal connection. Causation itself goes out the window and we are left with a universe of merely empirically given but not necessary correlations.

(Mar 29, 2024 05:15 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Note: The first article is about epiphenomenalism.

People who don't like their lives and won't take responsibility for it are forever seeking to justify that position.