(January 25, 2023 at 9:56 am)GrandizerII Wrote: [...]
I will admit I forgot about the textbook definition of EP, and that's what may have contributed to some of the confusion. If, by epiphenomenalism, you mean the textbook definition which contains the condition that the brain (or physical stuff in general) is the sole producer of consciousness, then sure, PZ is not compatible with that.
When I'm thinking epiphenomenalism, however, I tend to think of it in a general sense (where the emphasis is on [human] consciousness being an epiphenomenon, whatever the combination of producers may be).
[...]
My view of ep didn't come from any formal/textbook definition either, it was just what naturally stemmed from my views and theories on neural networks and the brain in the past. Views and theories I don't really hold to any more, except by default, as baggage from the past. So to truly know where I stand now on those, and similar issues, would mean fully revisiting and updating my views on psychology and neuroscience. As confident as I used to be in them, at the end of the day, in hindsight, they were armchair views; ie I'm not a psychologist and I'm not a neuroscientist, so they weren't sufficiently grounded in reality, to be truly reliable or scientific.
