>
>
> Peter Kosenko wrote:
> >
> > Which, in this line of argument, means that the "higher" has
nothing to contribute to the "lower", because the higher is a mere
"epiphenomenon."
> >
> > Peter Kosenko
> >
> >
>
> Huh?
>
> Carrol
========
< http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/ >
Epiphenomenalism
Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical
events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events.
Behavior is caused by muscles that contract upon receiving neural
impulses, and neural impulses are generated by input from other
neurons or from sense organs. On the epiphenomenalist view, mental
events play no causal role in this process. They are like a steam
whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive (Huxley,
1874). Mental events do not affect the brain activity that produces
them "any more than a shadow reacts upon the steps of the traveller
whom it accompanies" (James, 1879).