the fact that mind is determined by a physical system not necessarily entail epiphenomenalism. My best analogy is the difference between the object language and the metalanguage. In mathematics (number theory, Godel’s theorem), the metalanguage is embedded in the object language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalanguage#Embedded In this sense, the metalanguage supervenes on (and is determined by) the object language, but is not an epiphenomenon (and not eliminated either).
The field equations describing the universe as a dynamic system (plus randomness from the Born rule) leave no room for anything else than epiphenomenal conscience. Of course, when you “want” your arm to move, it moves because the system that creates the “will” and the system that “moves” the arm are intertwined, so you can describe the movement both in purely materialistic terms (as the Laplace demon would do) or in terms of a cascade of “conscient decisions”. But the whole point of the epiphenomenism is that being the matter autonomous, the materialistic description is consistent and sufficient by itself to describe and predict the events.
Your will has effects on the world, of course, but it is determined by a physical system.
I developed that position in the first reference of this post (Freedom under naturalistic dualism).
the fact that mind is determined by a physical system not necessarily entail epiphenomenalism. My best analogy is the difference between the object language and the metalanguage. In mathematics (number theory, Godel’s theorem), the metalanguage is embedded in the object language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalanguage#Embedded In this sense, the metalanguage supervenes on (and is determined by) the object language, but is not an epiphenomenon (and not eliminated either).
The field equations describing the universe as a dynamic system (plus randomness from the Born rule) leave no room for anything else than epiphenomenal conscience. Of course, when you “want” your arm to move, it moves because the system that creates the “will” and the system that “moves” the arm are intertwined, so you can describe the movement both in purely materialistic terms (as the Laplace demon would do) or in terms of a cascade of “conscient decisions”. But the whole point of the epiphenomenism is that being the matter autonomous, the materialistic description is consistent and sufficient by itself to describe and predict the events.