epiphenomenalism

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The doctrine that mental states and processes are simply incidental effects of physiological events in the brain or nervous system and cannot themselves cause any effects in the material world

The textbook account of epiphenomenalism goes something like this. Although our thoughts, desires, and other mental states seem to affect what happens in the world, by bringing about changes in our behavior or subsequent mental states, this is only an appearance, cast off by the real physical sequence of cause and effect that underlies our mental life.

Such a doctrine, as advanced by a particular thinker or school of thought

The theory of emergent evolution has been largely developed as a corrective of mechanistic theories with their attendant psycho-physical dualisms and epiphenomenalisms.

Belief that consciousness is an incidental side-effect ("epiphenomenon") or by-product of physical or mechanical reality On this view, although mental events are in some sense real they have no causal efficacy in the material realm Recommended Reading: D M Armstrong, The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction (Westviesw, 1999) {at Amazon com} and Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation (Bradford, 2000) {at Amazon com} Also see OCP, SEP, DPM, BGHT, ISM, and noesis
A dualistic theory which asserts that though the mind is real, it is only an after-effect of the natural processes of the brain, and has no causal effect on the brain or body
the view that matter is primary and that the mind is a secondary phenomenon accompanying some bodily processes
The view that some events or states or properties are caused by the physical, but then do not interact with anything else physical They have no causal powers themselves So, for example, if the mind were an epiphenomenon, then it might exist because of something the brain does, but the mind cannot then affect the brain This term is also used to refer to states or events or properties that do not causally interact with respect to some theory (though they might causally interact with something that isn't covered by the theory) So, in the latter use, the mind would be epiphenomenal with respect to psychology or neuroscience, say, if it isn't required to explain or understand our behavior
The doctrine that mental phenomena are not causal despite the fact they may seem to be <Discussion> <References> Chris Eliasmith
{i} theory that consciousness is a secondary creation of physiological processes
epiphenomenalism
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