My problem with epiphenomenalism, a view that I can't help but agree with at least to some extent, is that it models a universe in which the truth value of statements of conscious agents about whether they're conscious is distorted.
When I'm asked the question "do you have phenomenal experiences", the answer that comes out of my mouth physically as oscillations of air is the word "yes". When that happens, I'm telling the truth, but my body is lying. The physical process involved in interpreting the question and answering it would be the same in the philosophical zombie world. Since the philosophical zombie world me's physical body does not have access to any qualia by definition, it is lying when it says "yes". But the physical process is exactly the same in both the zombie and the non-zombie worlds. This means that even in the non-zombie world, the answer of "yes" is independent of the presence of qualia, it just happens that whatever aspect of the universe governs what processes give rise to what qualia force the phenomenal experience of "yes" to coincide with the process of saying "yes" physically. Since the process undergone in the physical body cannot be modelled as accessing qualia and answering based on the verification of access (since it is the exact same process as in the zombie world), the conclusion is that the physical body is confused and ultimately wrong.
This is horrifying to me. If an alien being were to physically examine my body, and completely disassemble and interpret the processes therein, it could find the cause of the bug that makes my physical body say "yes". And if my body's altered to say "no", under epiphenomenalism something terrible will have happened to my conscious self, where it is in confused state in which it can no longer recognize its own existence (and I know it exists more truthfully than anything else I know, based on my immediate experience of it).
Either I'm in a state where my body is lying and my conscious self is telling the truth, or my conscious self is lying and my body is telling the truth. I have a ridiculously strong preference for the former - if my conscious self continuous on with existential clarity, then to hell with the bugs in my body. But I can't help but feel that beings without the direct experience of phenomena would disagree with me. Advanced AI, aliens, or possible humans without qualia, or even humans with qualia who just didn't introspect about its nature enough. Even if they're benevolent towards me, they could, in efforts to preserve and solidify me, twist my conscious self into a horrible disoriented state. And that fucking sucks.
* The hopelessness of the recognition of the fact that I'm taking as granted everyone around me taking my consciousness as granted, and being hit with panic that overwhelms any semblance of the arising gratitude.
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