What is your position that doesn't fit any of the options? It seems to me that these five options should cover all positions. There are only four possible combinations of answers for two yes/no questions. I have three yes/no questions, but if you say no to consciousness, the other two questions are pointless. I don't see how there could be any other options.
Consciousness?
If yes:
Causally efficacious?
Evolved? — petrichor
We are conscious, epiphenomenalism is true, and consciousness evolved by natural selection. — petrichor
What about you? — Patterner
I would have voted for the first option:
We are conscious, epiphenomenalism is true, and consciousness evolved by natural selection.
— petrichor
...except that I see epiphenomenalism as based on simplistic thinking. My view is similar to the view Peter Tse expresses in this abstract. (unfortunately a wall of text) — wonderer1
I guess I don't understand what you're trying to do. I was just curious why you settled on those options. — Tom Storm
Your understanding of consciousness is a mess.
One thing is consciousness, another one is the self-consciousness. Read a bit more about the topic... — Raul
I have a hard time with eliminativism or illusionism. I can't imagine how, if there is actually no experience, there could be a situation where it nevertheless seems that there is an experience. — petrichor
I have often gotten the impression, which is maybe mistaken, that many in the scientific community basically take this position, that consciousness is real, that everything that happens in the brain is fully accounted for by low-level pre-conscious physical causes (and therefore epiphenomenalism must be true), and yet that consciousness evolved by natural selection. This has always seemed to me to be a problematic combination of incompatible beliefs. It makes me suspect that people haven't thought it all through sufficiently. But maybe I am missing something. Maybe, for one thing, they just don't even have in mind the same thing I do when talking about consciousness. — petrichor
What are your thoughts on the compatibility of epiphenomenalism and the evolution of consciousness by natural selection? It seems obvious, at least on the surface, that if consciousness were not somehow causally efficacious, it couldn't possibly make any difference to behavior, and therefore could not be selected for. — petrichor
It makes me suspect that people haven't thought it all through sufficiently. — petrichor
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