The Scripture Is False And The Biblical God Is Dead.

[GrandizerII]

PZs and EP are in the same book, for sure.  Both are dualist propositions - substance for the pz and property for ep.  Perhaps that's why they seem like they could somehow support each other?  The pz asks us to consider that nothing going on in our heads is the cause for qualia.  EP asks us to consider whether the stuff going on in our heads, which is definitely the explanation for qualia, is in some sort of causal closure.  That it's output which has no means of being used as input.  All intuitions to that effect being illusory - and here again is a similarity, as the asserted behavior of the pz is likewise, illusory.

I also think that subjectivity is a process, and I'm unaware of any physical process which literally cannot have physical effects.  When eps say that fear, for example, isn't what causes our hearts to beat faster - that other physical events cause our heart to beat faster and for us to feel fear - I don't doubt it (though I do think there's at least some wiggle room at the margins - prep response).  I do doubt, however, that the experience of fear is absent any causal effects or relationships.  One wonders how operant conditioning would work, in that case.  Does hearing the sound of the bell make the dog salivate?  Would a zombie-dog also salivate?  Is a prior experience of pain and terror a completely non-operative item in later pain and terror avoidance?

Maybe so, but if so, biology would appear to have missed one hell of an oppurtunity.

My zombie-dogs would salivate, yes; I also agree that fear is part of a process, ie conditional on causes and relationships, but just that those causes and relations under epiphenomenalist thinking would be manifested entirely within the physical correlates of consciousness, ie neurons and the brain. Perhaps you could consider them different levels of description; fear is a phenomenal experience, but it's also... or corresponds in some way to... a specific neural state of activity. As does hearing a sound, associating that sound with other neural representations, and triggering other neural events (ie salivating), same for a learned fear response... at either level of description they can be considered the same process, but just with epiphenomenalism asserting that the phenomenal side is causally inert... basically just a representation of the underlying physical processes.

Speaking of classical conditioning (which is what the example above is about), this is a mindset which was commonly employed by behaviorists in the early/mid-20th century (along with operant conditioning). The interesting thing about behaviorism is that it claimed to provide an adequate account for dogs salivating without referring to inner mental/cognitive states and purely to external stimuli and observable behaviors. Clearly that ended up not working.

Now, we see a view similar to behaviorism in which instead of cognitive states/acts not being real or worth considering, we have qualia/phenomenal consciousness that is being questioned.