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There is a term that refers to this, which I can't find anywhere, but I remember it from studies of consciousness and the brain.

For example, "consciousness is ____ on the physical brain". It's a property that emerges but sits above the structure of the physical brain, in an ephemeral way.

Any help on this much appreciated!

psitae
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rupertonline
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    The term [supervenience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervenience) is used is this regard. "*For example, it has been claimed that what is at issue with respect to the mind-body problem is whether mental phenomena do in fact supervene on physical phenomena.*" – nwr Aug 26 '21 at 03:43
  • Some consider that only certain aspects of consciusness, i.e., certain mental states such as intentional states and qualia, are not reducible to brain states, and consider them to be [Epiphenomenal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenon). This is called eliminative materialism. – nwr Aug 26 '21 at 03:51
  • Emergent is the general term, consciousness being emergent from the brain (as verified by consciousness altering effects of damage to the brain). Supervenient describes a causal relationship, where emergent layers are considered to have causal power over more fundamental or reductionist layers. See 'Why do compatibilists believe that whether we act freely is independent of whether or not determinism is true?' https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/77330/why-do-compatibilists-believe-that-whether-we-act-freely-is-independent-of-wheth/78868#78868 for reconciling emergence & supervenience – CriglCragl Aug 26 '21 at 10:01
  • @CriglCragl No supervenience is not by definition a causal relation. It is a much more general notion. As Lewis says: “We have supervenience when there could be no difference of one sort without differences of another sort”. That could it include causal relations, but it may also include non-causal ones. – transitionsynthesis Aug 26 '21 at 16:12
  • Supervenience is really *too* general a concept to describe the mind/brain relation in detail. The shape of a rock supervenes on a rock - in that we cannot change the shape of the rock without changing the rock - but this fails to describe *how* the shape depends on the rock. – causative Aug 26 '21 at 20:49
  • Yes "supervenes" was the term I was looking for! Thank you & happy to accept that as an answer. – rupertonline Aug 27 '21 at 06:18

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Based on the comments, the word you were looking for is supervene, or supervenience.

psitae
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