epiphenomenalism

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the theory that conscious mental events are causally inert by-products of physical brain processes — effects produced by the physical without having any causal influence on subsequent physical events; on this view, the mind is like the steam whistle on a locomotive: it is produced by the engine but does nothing to drive it forward; epiphenomenalism resolves the interaction problem of dualism by denying mental-to-physical causation altogether, but faces the challenge of explaining why evolution would produce phenomenally conscious organisms if consciousness has no adaptive function, and why our introspective belief in the causal efficacy of our thoughts is itself systematically mistaken