Post 26: What the hell is consciousness anyway? Part 2: Epiphenomenalism

The topic of today’s “What the hell is consciousness anyway?” is epiphenomenalism.

Epiphenomenalism is the idea that our subjective “I” is nothing more than a byproduct of physical processes in the brain and that it exists in tandem with other physical functions without influencing them. Essentially, we are aware, but that awareness does not play a determining role in our actions.

This is pretty counter-intuitive to me as I certainly feel like I make decisions. . . like choosing to write this post right now. (Maybe I could be using my time more wisely, but hey, that’s my business and my choice. . . or at least it seems like my choice. . but if epiphenomenalism is true maybe not?)

Anyway, this is one of those theories that under other circumstances I would probably just think is an interesting idea, but would probably also discard as another quibble in the eternal skirmish that is free will vs determinism, however, for better or for worse, there is actually some interesting evidence for the idea.

In the discussion below ChatGPT mentions some studies that seem to indicate that we make decisions subconsciously before we are consciously aware of what we are going to decide. The most interesting of these from the discussion are Multivariate Pattern Analysis studies where “researchers have been able to predict with significant accuracy whether a participant will press a button with their left or right hand up to 7–10 seconds before the participant reports conscious awareness of their choice.”

For the purposes of discussing AI this was pretty intriguing to me. I could feel an argument coming on from deep in my subconscious saying that maybe consciousness isn’t as valuable as we think if we aren’t using it to make decisions anyway. Maybe, if we, like AI, are just making decisions based on some deeper level of influences and patterns then maybe we need to rethink things a little.

But. . . as we continued the discussion we got to some more recent studies which suggest that although the subconscious does seem very determinative, it also seems like the reflective conscious does play an active role especially in particularly complex decisions. “Data analysis suggested transitions between responses driven by automatic processes and those requiring deliberate analysis, providing evidence for the dual-system framework in decision-making.”

So there may be some reason to continue exploring this whole consciousness thing and how it relates to AI after all 🙂.