Epiphenomenalism
Epiphenomenalism is a theory of mind-body interaction. It denies mental causation, holding that mind-body interaction only occurs in one direction only: from the physical to the mental. According to epiphenomenalists, physical events cause mental events, but not vice versa.
Epiphenomenalism avoids some of the problems associated with interactionism. Interactionists are committed to the idea that mental events (such as decisions) can cause physical events (such as actions). This idea, though, involves the bizarre idea that non-physical entities like minds can affect physical entities like bodies. What is more, it violates the scientific principle that the universe is a closed causal system. By denying that mental events cause physical events, epiphenomenalism avoids both of these problems. According to epiphenomenalism, there is no causal input into the universe from our immaterial minds; immaterial minds do not affect physical bodies.
Epiphenomenalism may avoid some of the problems of dualism, but it does not avoid all of them. The fundamental difference between the mental and the physical, the root cause of the problem of mind-body interaction, is no less problematic for epiphenomenalism than it is for interactionism. However difficult the difference between minds and bodies makes it to understand how mental events can cause physical events, the idea that physical events can cause mental events will be equally bewildering. This thought has motivated some to take the radical step of denying causal interaction between mind and body altogether, giving rise to an alternative theory of mind-body interaction: parallelism.
Epiphenomenalism, then, is just as problematic as interactionism. What is worse, though, is that it lacks the intuitive appeal of interactionism, and so offers no benefits to off-set the difficulties. Though it seems to us that such mental events as beliefs, desires, and decisions have an effect on what we do, epiphenomenalism holds that this does not happen. Epiphenomenalism thus reduces us to mere spectators of our lives, watching what happens but unable to affect it. If we are going to accept a theory as problematic as epiphenomenalism, then we might as well go for a full-blown interactionism.
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