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Reflection on awesome point made by Plantinga in a lecture

If epiphenomenalism is true, then beliefs are always and only the result of bodily events. That is, they are never the cause of bodily events (put in other words, cognition is always an effect and never a cause of behavior). But if they are never the cause of such events, then they are irrelevant to whether a behavior is or is not adaptive.

We could have a wrong belief but act adaptively. We could have a totally wrong belief each time and still act adaptively. That's one of Plantinga's points in his lecture on Evolution vs. Materialism, published by the Veritas Forum.

But let's intensify his point in a manner not explored by him:

An apparent human being could be a zombie (mindless robot) that behaves quite adaptively. Because belief doesn't cause behavior, which includes both adaptive and maladaptive behavior.

One can reply that of course beliefs matter. To which the counter is that either epiphenomenalism is false or reductionism is false or (my favorite) both are false.

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