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Is it because in our every day experience, we feel as if we are causally influencing things? But if that’s the case, intuition also tells us that we have free will, and yet many philosophers do not believe in free will or even find it incoherent.

Epiphenomenalism, as a reminder, is that consciousness is a byproduct of physical processes or may be directly connected to physical processes but doesn’t have any causal power. What exactly is the problem here?

We have some level of evidence that physical processes generate consciousness already given that it doesn’t seem to exist without the brain for example. Thus, this implies a dependence on the physical, but without a dependence of the physical on consciousness. As such, why would we expect conscious processes to play a causal role anyways?

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  • SEP details various arguments against epiphenomenalism. However, I believe that epiphenomenalism is popular amongst neuroscientists.
    – nwr
    Commented Nov 2 at 20:04
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    We have some level of evidence that physical processes generate consciousness already given that it doesn’t seem to exist without the brain for example - Some dualists may object to this by appealing to anecdotal evidence from near-death experiences, past-life experiences, out-of-body experiences, etc. Whether this evidence is compelling or not is debatable, of course.
    – user80226
    Commented Nov 2 at 20:05
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    Because it posits a superfluous entity. If one does not trust our intuitions on what consciousness does then why trust them on its existence as traditionally understood? Both are tainted by biases of ingrained folk psychology and, under epiphenomenalism, consciousness is an idle wheel anyway. A form of physicalism that either reduces it to physics or dismisses it as illusion is a more attractive option.
    – Conifold
    Commented Nov 3 at 0:01
  • @Conifold We don’t intuit that consciousness exists though: it’s an even truer form of “self evident” than other intuitions since even having an intuition implies you’re conscious, so that analogy doesn’t work. For similar reasons, it makes no sense to call a self evident thing superfluous. It may be superfluous with respect to causality under epiphenomenalism but not superfluous with respect to its very existence.
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 0:44
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    Sentimental emphasis on 'self-evidence' does not impress philosophers much, and physicalists interpret "you’re conscious" in ways that make epiphenomenal consciousness superfluous. For illusionists, it is a an artifact of self-representation, for reductionists, it is a physical process under a misleading description, which is causally efficacious after all.
    – Conifold
    Commented Nov 3 at 5:16

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The main problem with epiphenomenalism (from a philosophical perspective) is that if epiphenomenalism is true then all of philosophy is void and meaningless. All morality and ethics are void and meaningless; all thoughts and intuitions are void and meaningless; all poetry and art is void and meaningless… It's a non-starter as a position.

Though it is not (to my knowledge) cast this way, epiphenomenalism is a stringent form of nihilism, insisting that all human values are just fog on a mirror. One can proclaim this position easily enough, but there is literally nothing one can do with this position, because anything one might take from this position will just be a mental epiphenomenon that (by definition) has no effect on the world at all.

We cannot argue with a position that asserts that all argument is meaningless and void. All we can do is shrug and go do something else.

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    I heartily disagree. I think that epiphenomenalism and hence the belief in a lack of agency, will profoundly affect how we think about morality and what that will mean for our broken justice system. We once burnt witches at the stake. People shrugged and went to do something else. I am glad we no longer do that.
    – Philomath
    Commented Nov 3 at 6:40
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    @Philomath: I question your logic. If we lack agency, how can we think or do anything? If we lack agency, then witches will be burned and 'justice' will not be served, because justice is a choice. It we lack agency, then what's the point of arguing a point? Think it through…
    – Ted Wrigley
    Commented Nov 3 at 7:21
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    @Syed: Computers don't grow on trees (i.e., are not naturally occurring items in the world). They are a physical manifestation of a set of ideas. Epiphenomenalism would tell us that ideas have no effect on the world, and thus that computers are a product of some biophysical processes which also (incidentally) produce the ideas we have about computers: i.e., that computers actually do grow on metaphorical trees, we just mistakenly think otherwise. That is nihilism: the rejection of human value and meaning.
    – Ted Wrigley
    Commented Nov 3 at 19:22
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    @Syed: LOL: My claims are based on the experience of consciousness, which precedes and underlies this entire conversation. That's evidence; what have you got? But let me be clear: if you choose to believe that all of your mental processes are purely epiphenomenal and impotent, then I see no reason to continue this discussion. I prefer not to talk with non-sentient objects. That's my choice. When you decide to be sentient, let me know.
    – Ted Wrigley
    Commented Nov 3 at 23:52
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    @TedWrigley what determines your choice or your next thought? Good luck making sense of the idea that you think before you think your next thought
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 23:55
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Epiphenomenalism was at one point in the 50s and 60s pretty popular in philosophy of mind. I recall my phil of Mind textbook in the 70s was mostly epiphenomenalists. And it is under a bit of a renaissance now -- with Chalmers, Jackson, and Kim all epiphenomenalists.

But yes, there are a lot of criticisms.

Materialist leaning physicalists do not like that epiphenomenalism is dualist. There is a lot of anti-dualism rhetoric in philosophy, and being an epiphenomenalist puts one in that bullseye.

Epiphenomenalism has all the complexity of two-way dualism. One must expalin a second substrate/plane, and one needs interaction between the material and the mind planes. AND, while epiphenomenalism does not need the other way interaction laws, it DOES need explanation for why the interaction is only one way -- which is no simpler. The "simplicity" argument for materialism was severely undercut when materialism was refuted by Einstein, and "physicalism" is itself immensely complex (particularly the emergent forms, which are more complex than dualism), but there is still some affection for it.

There are also several powerful counter-evidences.

  1. We have delusions, and at times our minds are blank. So there is no "necessity" for mental events to track with physical ones. Yet mostly they do. Why? Under evolutionary variance, one should expect even if minds were initially in sync with bodies, that they would gradually go out of sync due to mutations. The only way they can stay in sync, is if minds are causal, and their relevance is selected for by evolution.

  2. We can communicate about our mental life. Under epiphenomenalism, there is no causal relation between our having a thought, and what we then say about our thoughts. We could not communicate about our mental life, if it were not causal. We could also not perform experiments to establish NCCs, or ask people about their pain level, or preferences etc. and expect any useful data. Basically every empirical interaction requires that epiphenomenalism not be true.

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  • First, I'm not sure why you're using the word interaction here since that implies causality. It's moreso that physical things generate consciousness and conscious experiences don't generate anything physical: I wouldn't really call this an interaction atleast not in the normal sense of things.
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 4:34
  • In regards to communication, the physical circuits that correspond to an image of the earth for example, generate the image in your head. This is stored in the physical circuits that correspond to memory. These circuits are then recalled generating similar conscious experiences that then cause physical circuits that correspond to the impulse to want to communicate and then result in communication where I tell someone that I am currently imagining earth. What's the problem here?
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 4:34
  • Syed -- "generate" is a causal interaction. What, exactly, is generated? When? When is something else generated,? Exactly WHAT "something else"? When is nothing generated. Etc. You need a full set of interaction laws.
    – Dcleve
    Commented Nov 3 at 6:36
  • In regards to communication, how do you study consciousness and determine its interaction laws? You have postulated that consciousness is non-causal. You cannot study it. You can never have ANY data about it.
    – Dcleve
    Commented Nov 3 at 6:39
  • generate is a causal interaction from physical to conscious: and to answer the further questions: we don't know. But we sure as hell have a lot of evidence indicating the dependence of consciousness upon the physical: such as the fact we experience long states of a lack of consciousness in sleep, or when we die. Where is any evidence at all for the opposite?
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 6:50
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Your question is the answer.

Epiphenomenalism is the idea that mental events are caused by physical events, but do not cause physical effects themselves. It then follows that the brain should not have knowledge of the mind. But your question on this SE asks about epiphenomenalism which shows that we have knowledge of epiphenomenalism. We then have to conclude that our brains do know about the mind. Therefore, epiphenomenalism can not be true.

This objection is known as the argument of self-stultification.

There are more arguments and they mostly have to do with the heinous consequences of epiphenomenology, namely the fact that it undermines our evident agency in action and precludes our substantial self knowledge.

Jerry Fodor ((1990). A theory of content and other essays) put it more eloquently than I can:

If it isn’t literally true that my wanting is causally responsible for my reaching, and my itching is causally responsible for my scratching, and my believing is causally responsible for my saying …, if none of that is literally true, then practically everything I believe about anything is false and it’s the end of the world.

Fodor also coined the term epiphobia, the fear that one's views imply epiphenomenalism.

For what it is worth: I am a staunch epiphenomenalist. But that was not the question.

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  • "evident agency in action" how evident really is this? Do you even choose your thoughts? In order to choose your thoughts, you'd have to first think about which thoughts you will next think: this sounds circular and obviously false. Thoughts come from nowhere even in experience, and are likely better explained by the unconscious physical machinery generating them. I also don't see how the brain shouldn't have knowledge of the mind just because consciousness can't cause physical effects
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 7:31
  • @Syed I am afraid you misunderstood me. This is not my position. I was merely answering your question. Your question was: why are so many philosophers against epiphenomenalism? It was not: what do you think? I mentioned that in my last sentence.
    – Philomath
    Commented Nov 3 at 7:49
  • But to steelman the opposition's argument: If the brain consists of atoms and molecules and these give rise to conscious eperience then how do the atoms and molecules 'know' that, if that experience can not be sensed / detected? If there is a so called neural correlate of consciousness, then if it fires and 'the lights went on', then how does another part of the brain know that something very peculiar happend: namely that the lights came on?
    – Philomath
    Commented Nov 3 at 7:55
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    We have knowledge of epiphenomenalism. We then have to conclude that our brains do know about the mind. This does not follow at all. You have identified we with our brains. That's something that needs support. What it means for me to have knowledge, and for my brain to know something, are two completely separate things. It's even two different usages of the word "know". A brain can only "know" something in the same way the same way a clock "knows" what time it is. A clock doesn't know what time is, or what time means. Neither does a brain.
    – Stewart
    Commented Nov 5 at 22:29
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    @Stewart That's interesting. You mean as in Analytic Idealism?
    – Philomath
    Commented Nov 6 at 8:21
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Epiphenomenalism contradicts what we have learned concerning nature, through such people as Newton and Darwin.

It contradicts Newton's law of reaction, in that it implies that there could exist cases where causation is asymmetric and non-reversable: X can cause Y but Y cannot cause X. To my knowledge we have yet to find any evidence of such asymmetric causation in nature. What seems to be the case is that if X can impact Y, then Y can impact X, at least in principle. Causality works both ways.

More fundamentally, something that exists as part of this world must exist in some sense as a cause for something else. It must make a difference in this world, otherwise in what sense is it part of it? How could we even ascertain its existence? How could we notice it?

Epiphenomena do not exist, as defined. They have no way of existing, other than as a figment of our imagination, because to exist means to impact other stuff around.

Finally, as a specific biological behavior, conscious thoughts require a Darwinian explanation as per how they emerged, and why they spread and remained a character of a certain population of living organisms throughout a certain evolutionary period. By definition, an epiphenomenon can present no Darwinian advantage, so how come we are not all unconscious beings?

Conscious thoughts must present an advantage to the organism, least they contradict Darwin.

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  • Images in a video game are generated by computer code. The images themselves don’t affect the code: only their representation in code can. The steam of a train is caused by the train engine but has no impact on the train. There’s an example of asymmetric causation.
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 16:11
  • @Syed the steam is what moves the train.The image on the screen is what the player uses to navigate and play the game and input new code into the machine.
    – Olivier5
    Commented Nov 3 at 16:45
  • “Huxley (1874), who held the view, compared mental events to a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive. James (1879), who rejected the view, characterized epiphenomenalists’ mental events as not affecting the brain activity that produces them “any more than a shadow reacts upon the steps of the traveller whom it accompanies”.“
    – Syed
    Commented Nov 3 at 16:55
  • @Syed the steam blown by the wistle cannot be used by the engine. People get scared by their own shadow.
    – Olivier5
    Commented Nov 3 at 17:05
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    @Uzai Okay. My point is precisely that IF any two things that both exist could conceivably interact, THEN nothing that exists can be described as "non-causal".
    – Olivier5
    Commented Nov 4 at 16:59

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