I have no idea what you mean by 'conscious causation'.RJG wrote:
Me: And what is the difference? How are 'thoughts associated with reflection' different from 'reflection'?
Huge difference -- one implies consciously ‘experiencing’, the other implies consciously ‘doing’ (i.e. conscious ‘causation’). One is possible, the other is not.
So our bodies move about without us having any control over them, we are helpless passengers!Me: Does this apply to all verbs? We do not 'run', we just 'experience a physical event associated with running'?
Yes, correct! Because of CTD, we can’t consciously ‘do’ anything, we can only consciously experience that which has already been ‘done’. We can’t consciously move our bodies about -- we can only be conscious of our bodies moving about. Again, a huge difference in meaning, between the two statements.
In that case, what does control our bodies? Do they simply move at random? Is there some ghostly spirit that directs them? No; that cannot work because the ghostly spirit would also not be doing the moving because of CTD. Again we are back in the infinite regress, where no movement is possible because the thing really responsible for the moving is always one step before the one we are looking at.
It can't have 'already happened' because it had 'already happened' before it 'already happened'. And before that 'already happened' it had 'already happened'. And so on. See Zeno's Paradox.Our consciousness is a delayed view of reality. That which we consciously experience as happening, has already happened!
Your idea requires God as 'first cause'. While all other consciousness can only passively receive thoughts, there must be this exceptional entity, not subject to CTD, that can originate them. I do not run. I am only the passive witness of God's fitness regime, in which God is occupying my body.
As I have said before, such metaphysical theories cannot be disproved, but there is no end of them and every one is as good as any other.