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Epiphenomenalism.

This is a sort of one-way dualism, in which consciousness is a product of brain processes but is itself without any causal effect on those processes. As far as perception is conserned it therefore suffers from exactly the same problem as dualism, in being a denial of the possibility of giving an explanation.

Both of these approaches are impaled on the dilemma of reconciling a physics that is purely spatial and quantitative with a total world of experience that is fundamentally non-spatial and qualitative. Their only recourse is largely to ignore the latter, relegating it to an area where explanation is ruled out.

It would seem, at this point, that all that is left is explanations that identify with mind with some aspect of the brain (various types of identity theories). Since the brain is apparently spatial, so are its processes and aspects, and hence so, it would seem, is mind. If we follow this route, then we appear to be led to the position that, though mind may be non-spatial from a phenomenological point of view, it is spatial from a physical point of view. Those who place physics above phenomenology would add that this meant that it was really spatial.



Chris Clarke
Tue Feb 4 16:22:05 GMT 1997