Where does thought come from? was Re: lbo-talk-digest V1 #4706

[Carrol Cox]

In other words, Peter is saying that _either_ mental events exist in a
world of their own, prior to and independently of all physical activity,
_or_ they are nothing. If we are not angels we are merely automatons. I
think this is usually called dualism. Damasio points out that while
Descartes's separation of "mind" and "brain" has been rejected by most,
most still do cling to a crude separation of brain and body. Cf. the
frequent science fiction plot involving a brain kept alive in a bottle
and still thinking.

Carrol

Ian Murray wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > 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).