I agree with all of that except 4. (A piano “emerges” from putting together its parts. But there is nothing epiphenomenal about it, as anyone who has had a piano fall on them will know.) But it gets no farther to explaining consciousness.
The charitable reading of 4 would be that the piano has no causal powers beyond those of its parts: it’s a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons that crushes you.
A piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons is a piano. The causal powers of the piano are exactly the same as a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons. Mentioning the quarks and electrons is doing no work, because we can talk of pianos without knowing anything about quarks and electrons.
It’s the quarks and electrons that are epiphenomenal to the piano, not the other way round.
A piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons is a piano. The causal powers of the piano are exactly the same as a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons. Mentioning the quarks and electrons is doing no work, because we can talk of pianos without knowing anything about quarks and electrons.
That’s what I meant: if two things are identical, they have identical causal powers. The Singer/Strawson argument seems to be that nothing exists or causes anything unless it is strongly emergent.
Less like I oppose ever using words “exist” and “causes” for non-fundamental things, and more like doing it is what makes it vulnerable to conceivability argument in the first place: the only casual power that brain has and rock hasn’t comes from different configuration of quarks in space, but quarks are in the same places in zombie world.
The charitable reading of 4 would be that the piano has no causal powers beyond those of its parts: it’s a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons that crushes you.
A piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons is a piano. The causal powers of the piano are exactly the same as a piano-shaped bunch of quarks and electrons. Mentioning the quarks and electrons is doing no work, because we can talk of pianos without knowing anything about quarks and electrons.
It’s the quarks and electrons that are epiphenomenal to the piano, not the other way round.
That’s what I meant: if two things are identical, they have identical causal powers. The Singer/Strawson argument seems to be that nothing exists or causes anything unless it is strongly emergent.
Less like I oppose ever using words “exist” and “causes” for non-fundamental things, and more like doing it is what makes it vulnerable to conceivability argument in the first place: the only casual power that brain has and rock hasn’t comes from different configuration of quarks in space, but quarks are in the same places in zombie world.