Thoughts about Epiphenominal explanations of the mind?
I'm a former philosophy student that had general interests Philo of Mind and that always stuck out to me as the most reasonable explanation for consciousness.
As a former psychology student (lol) I have to point out that an epiphenominal mind is perhaps the least parsimonious thing imaginable. It's also been effectively disproven since the cognitive revolution at least. Since we can understand ideas, take in / generate perceptions, and act in meaningful ways based on what we've understood - some kind of raw behavioural conditioning is not a valid explanation for our behavior. Nor the behavior of most higher animals.
Can you elaborate on why you think epiphenominalism is the most reasonable explanation for consciousness?
My point of confusion with the epiphenominal view point is if mental states aren't at all causal, why should they exist at all? It seems like a clever way of compromising on the ontological question ("your mind is _kind of_ real"), but if mental states can't _do_ anything, then why should physical life develop them?
The comparison I've always liked is the "steam whistle set off by a locomotive". The steam whistle has no causal efficacy on the locomotive but is a waste byproduct of a steam engine.
Consciousness shouldn't have any causal effect on physical processes (assuming a strictly materialist framework), if it's explained as a byproduct of functioning physical processes it tends to deal with the issues 'consciousness' has that are in inherently in conflict with strict materialism.
I'm still confused. The steam whistle is built intentionally, alongside the locomotive, and together the train serves a clear, externally imposed purpose. The whistle doesn't impact the function on the engine, but a train with a whistle was decided to be a better train, because it does casually interact with the train's environment.
I get the ontological claim that mental states are real but cannot cause effects on physical states. But it seems unsatisfactory to claim that these rich, real but non causal states just happen to arise, without purpose, in only some physical systems, without further explanation.