Definition of "epiphenomenalism" [epiphenomenalism]

• Philosophy The doctrine holding that mental activities are simply epiphenomena of the neural processes of the brain. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In contrast to Huxley, I am here using the term epiphenomenalism 'to denote any view according to which belief isn't involved in the causal chain leading to behavior, whether or not that view involves the dualism apparently part of"
• "Let's say you are six feet tall and weigh 200 pounds and believe that epiphenomenalism is false and that 5+1 = 51 and that tomorrow more than 93 of your ancestors will be reincarnated as bright orange unicorns or bluish centaurs in a parallel universe, and you would love to be a time-traveling psychotic computer program that designs completely undetectable entities."
• "The theory called epiphenomenalism simply denies that the metal can affect the physical, and contents itself with an explanation of why the mental appears to affect the physical."