The Libet experiment refuses to die as a supposed defeater of free will. No matter how many times you explain that it doesn't show what people like Sam Harris claim, it remains the most commonly cited research in popular discussions about free will. And there's something disingenuous about citing it constantly when virtually every free will denier is convinced by the argument from physicalism, not the current state of neuroscience. I know this wasn't the primary topic of the video, but I needed to rant for a minute. Anyway, I just recently discovered your channel but I'm really enjoying what I've seen so far. Keep up the great work.
But surely you don't have to be a physicalist to believe brain activity follows laws of nature? Or atleast that the empirical evidence for anomalies hasn't turned up in neuroscience. Dualists, idealists, panpsychists etc can doubt libertarian free will aswell for similar considerations.
@@Shentifier No question, but that's a different matter entirely than whether Libet's Readiness Potential is a death blow for free will. Myself, I consider the existence of free will to be an open question. I'm just frustrated with the same study being constantly cited as though it has definitively answered the question, when it clearly hasn't. In general, I think free will deniers tend to wildly overstate their case.
It’s a perfectly valid epistemological point-of-view to believe that it is more likely that I am free than that the outside world exists as I have a deeper, closer, and harder to operationally deny relationship with it than I do with the outside world. I can operationally imagine quite easily that I am dreaming, but that I am not free is, while conceptually “possible” to imagine, impossible to “believe” in actual lived experience, even if it’s a dream. So, the question of freedom is not an object of scientific inquiry any more than the “existence of an outside world” is; it’s a datum to be assumed and explained. That’s my take.
I find the evolutionary argument against epiphenomenalism highly persuasive. The best response to it I can think of is to list counter-examples where our conscious desires have harmful effects (e.g. addictions), but these seem best explained as spandrels.
There is so much wrong with the inference from Libet-style experiments to the denial of the causal efficacy of the mind that I'm very surprised Matthew defended it.
The evidence of causation dilemma is the strongest argument imo, but I would like to criticize the "illusions have a phenomenological difference" argument and the modified self defeat argument. -The moving circles illusion still appears to move even when one rationally grasps that it is an illusion, it's involuntary. An illusion can still stubbornly persist and doesn't have to fall away. -Perhaps the epiphenomenalist could have a different analysis of what it means for X to talk about Y. Instead it could mean the qualia-talk is just caused by the brain state which causes the relevant mental state, instead of being directly caused by the relevant mental state.
By the way, I think the IIT model of consciousness answers this all nicely: physical states give rise to mental/conscious states based on the intrinsic causal structure of the physical mechanism and the state it’s in. The mental/conscious state is not identical to the physical state because of issues like multiple realizability. But a particular mechanism in a particular state necessarily implies the realization of a particular conscious state. (A “quale” in IIT lingo.) Further an integrated physical system in a particular state is a causally irreducible entity and it’s behavior is determined by the reality of the higher level conscious “shape” it generates in a kind of downward causation model. But this is not a monism where “there is something it is like to be an electron” or anything like that. Physical states are just “abstract” logical structures (“mechanisms”) and it doesn’t matter “what they’re made of” only that they are concrete instances of actual integrated causal activity. So epiphenominalism is false here because the mental/conscious state generated by an integrated mechanism is the thing that actually does the causal work despite not being conceptually identical to the physical state. (Again, because of multiple realizability.)
If property-dualism requires temporal-priority, then it is distinct from nonreductive physicalism, as the supervenience/grounding is simultaneous and the priority is just ontological.
A lot of hand wringing to come to the conclusion that extreme pain causes the experience of wanting the pain to end. Philosophy is awesome and insane. (Well, epiphenominalists and materialists are insane. Philosophy should be the cure.)
Your introduction and definition of Epiphenomenalism is disingenuous. You are right with the definition that things in consciousness (thoughts) have a role, but they are not functional. What you neglect to mention is that the phenomenon of consciousness is a side effect of mental contents. Epiphenomenalism do not disagree that the brain is broken down into separate processing streams.
@@EmersonGreen You are doing it again, leaving the important part out. For physicalist every mental state has to be instantiated within a physical state in the brain.
That "the phenomenon of consciousness is a side effect of metal mental content" is a tautology. 'Mental content' appare within 'conciseness' which, under epiphenomenalism, is a consequence that can never be a cause. If consciousness produced no consequence there would be no conversation about conscious experience because no matter how vivid an experience it could never animate the material world. Under epiphenomenalism only mechanism, chemistry and 'physical' stuff can produce material consequences.
@@nickbtggl4396 The statement "the phenomenon of consciousness is a side effect of mental content" is not a tautology. In the statement, the term "consciousness" is not synonymous with "mental content." Arguing that one is a "side effect" of the other is a hypothesis, not a tautological statement.
Paul, in his many letters, said that the Greek obsession with philosophy is an obstacle to faith as he understood it. So the OP is arguing from the god of revealed religion against the god of the philosophers which they see as sophistry and vanity. Just sayin’...@@EmersonGreen
The Libet experiment refuses to die as a supposed defeater of free will. No matter how many times you explain that it doesn't show what people like Sam Harris claim, it remains the most commonly cited research in popular discussions about free will.
And there's something disingenuous about citing it constantly when virtually every free will denier is convinced by the argument from physicalism, not the current state of neuroscience.
I know this wasn't the primary topic of the video, but I needed to rant for a minute.
Anyway, I just recently discovered your channel but I'm really enjoying what I've seen so far. Keep up the great work.
Can you disprove Sapolsky
Even Libet himself didn't think his experiment disproved free will.
But surely you don't have to be a physicalist to believe brain activity follows laws of nature? Or atleast that the empirical evidence for anomalies hasn't turned up in neuroscience. Dualists, idealists, panpsychists etc can doubt libertarian free will aswell for similar considerations.
@@Shentifier No question, but that's a different matter entirely than whether Libet's Readiness Potential is a death blow for free will.
Myself, I consider the existence of free will to be an open question. I'm just frustrated with the same study being constantly cited as though it has definitively answered the question, when it clearly hasn't.
In general, I think free will deniers tend to wildly overstate their case.
It’s a perfectly valid epistemological point-of-view to believe that it is more likely that I am free than that the outside world exists as I have a deeper, closer, and harder to operationally deny relationship with it than I do with the outside world. I can operationally imagine quite easily that I am dreaming, but that I am not free is, while conceptually “possible” to imagine, impossible to “believe” in actual lived experience, even if it’s a dream. So, the question of freedom is not an object of scientific inquiry any more than the “existence of an outside world” is; it’s a datum to be assumed and explained. That’s my take.
I find the evolutionary argument against epiphenomenalism highly persuasive. The best response to it I can think of is to list counter-examples where our conscious desires have harmful effects (e.g. addictions), but these seem best explained as spandrels.
There is so much wrong with the inference from Libet-style experiments to the denial of the causal efficacy of the mind that I'm very surprised Matthew defended it.
We spoke a little after he posted it, and he did say that he shouldn’t have included it.
If my shadow moves in a way that correlates with the moves of my body I don't think shadow caused my body to move.
I don't think epiphenomenalism requires temporal priority necessarily (diachronic causation). It looks compatible with synchronic causation.
The evidence of causation dilemma is the strongest argument imo, but I would like to criticize the "illusions have a phenomenological difference" argument and the modified self defeat argument.
-The moving circles illusion still appears to move even when one rationally grasps that it is an illusion, it's involuntary. An illusion can still stubbornly persist and doesn't have to fall away.
-Perhaps the epiphenomenalist could have a different analysis of what it means for X to talk about Y. Instead it could mean the qualia-talk is just caused by the brain state which causes the relevant mental state, instead of being directly caused by the relevant mental state.
By the way, I think the IIT model of consciousness answers this all nicely: physical states give rise to mental/conscious states based on the intrinsic causal structure of the physical mechanism and the state it’s in. The mental/conscious state is not identical to the physical state because of issues like multiple realizability. But a particular mechanism in a particular state necessarily implies the realization of a particular conscious state. (A “quale” in IIT lingo.) Further an integrated physical system in a particular state is a causally irreducible entity and it’s behavior is determined by the reality of the higher level conscious “shape” it generates in a kind of downward causation model. But this is not a monism where “there is something it is like to be an electron” or anything like that. Physical states are just “abstract” logical structures (“mechanisms”) and it doesn’t matter “what they’re made of” only that they are concrete instances of actual integrated causal activity. So epiphenominalism is false here because the mental/conscious state generated by an integrated mechanism is the thing that actually does the causal work despite not being conceptually identical to the physical state. (Again, because of multiple realizability.)
If property-dualism requires temporal-priority, then it is distinct from nonreductive physicalism, as the supervenience/grounding is simultaneous and the priority is just ontological.
Neuroscience is NOT in this limited state that can't understand nor scan individual neurons.
I recommend you to interview Titus Rivas, he has an interesting article against epiphenomenalismp, and he is a substance dualist.
16:21 Have you read Chalmers' response to this objection in Chapter 5 of his book _The Conscious Mind_ ?
I agree with some points, disagree with others...guess I'll subscribe.
A lot of hand wringing to come to the conclusion that extreme pain causes the experience of wanting the pain to end. Philosophy is awesome and insane. (Well, epiphenominalists and materialists are insane. Philosophy should be the cure.)
Your introduction and definition of Epiphenomenalism is disingenuous. You are right with the definition that things in consciousness (thoughts) have a role, but they are not functional. What you neglect to mention is that the phenomenon of consciousness is a side effect of mental contents. Epiphenomenalism do not disagree that the brain is broken down into separate processing streams.
On epiphenomenalism, mental states have no causal influence. That's just what the view is, dawg.
@@EmersonGreen You are doing it again, leaving the important part out. For physicalist every mental state has to be instantiated within a physical state in the brain.
That "the phenomenon of consciousness is a side effect of metal mental content" is a tautology. 'Mental content' appare within 'conciseness' which, under epiphenomenalism, is a consequence that can never be a cause. If consciousness produced no consequence there would be no conversation about conscious experience because no matter how vivid an experience it could never animate the material world. Under epiphenomenalism only mechanism, chemistry and 'physical' stuff can produce material consequences.
To me too this seems to be a weakening of the definition of epiphenomalism.
@@nickbtggl4396 The statement "the phenomenon of consciousness is a side effect of mental content" is not a tautology. In the statement, the term "consciousness" is not synonymous with "mental content." Arguing that one is a "side effect" of the other is a hypothesis, not a tautological statement.
every philosophy you discuss on this channel is a cope at avoiding the truth of Christianity. Even Satan appears as an angel of light.
what the fuck are you talking about
Christians say the darnedest things, S4E6
Everyone calms and behaves civilized again quickly please.
Truth lol. Let us know when it's fact.
Paul, in his many letters, said that the Greek obsession with philosophy is an obstacle to faith as he understood it. So the OP is arguing from the god of revealed religion against the god of the philosophers which they see as sophistry and vanity. Just sayin’...@@EmersonGreen