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Philosophy essay: Mental causation not essential for explaining consciousness

By PulseAugur Editorial · [1 sources] ·

This philosophical essay argues that mental causation, the idea that mental states can influence physical events, is not essential for explaining consciousness. The author proposes that "intelligible supervenience"—where higher-level mental facts can be clearly explained by underlying physical facts—is a more crucial concept. This view addresses the epistemic problems of epiphenomenalism, such as why consciousness evolved, without requiring direct mental causation. AI

RANK_REASON This is a philosophical essay discussing concepts in the philosophy of mind, not a release of new AI technology or research findings.

Read on LessWrong (AI tag) →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

Philosophy essay: Mental causation not essential for explaining consciousness

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This is a philosophical essay discussing concepts in the philosophy of mind, not a release of new AI technology or research findings.
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  1. LessWrong (AI tag) TIER_1 English(EN) · jessicata ·

    Mental causation is not load-bearing

    <p>In philosophy of mind, "mental causation" means mental entities have causal effects, especially physical ones. If physicalism is true, then physical effects are explainable in terms of physical causes (or at least, fundamental physical laws), needing no recourse to causation b…

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