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Definition:
An empiphenomenon is an event which is secondary and which accompanies some
other, primary event.
Epiphenomenalism is the doctrine that all mental phenomena are wholly caused by physical events in the brain itself, but that mental phenomena themselves have absolutely no effects on the physical brain. A loose analogy would be the steam produced by a steam engine - the steam is an epiphenomenon of the working of the engine, but does not then affect the engine itself.
This results in an unusual consequence: because mental events have no effect on events in the physical brain, what one thinks or decides or plans consciously has no influence on what one actually does. Another way of putting it is, what you consciously think has no impact on what you end up doing.
This may sound contrary to the normal interpretation of what we do, because we believe that our conscious decision to do something, like pick up a book, is the cause of our actually picking up the book. However, there is some evidence that our conscious decision to do things may be caused by underlying neural events which we are not conscious of. These events, then, are the actual cause of both our conscious decision and our action.
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Related Resources:
What is the Philosophy of Mind?
The relatively recent specialty known as Philosophy of Mind deals with questions of consciousness and how it interacts with the body and the outside world. Thus, it asks not only what mental phenomena are and what gives rise to them, but also what relationship they have to the larger physical body and the world around us.What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? Is there any point in studying philosophy, or is it a useless subject? What are the different branches of philosophy - what's the difference between aestheitcs and ethics? What's the difference between metaphysics and epistemology?
