What is a strong argument against the concievability of philosophical zombies?
Preferably one that isn't overly difficult to understand, I don't regret doing postgrad philosophy when i i did an unrelated field undergrad, but it has it's challenges.
Comments (200)
What is a philosophical zombie?
However, if someone thinks that AI will one day teach us about intelligence, or even that an AI will be smarter than a human being, then there's no argument to be had, I think.
Finally, we might do better in studying people who sleepwalk, which is something that actually happens and seems to resemble zombie behavior.
It only has to be metaphysically possible, (as opposed to physically possible) to do the work it's intended to do. It clearly is.
Chalmers acknowledges that science has the challenge of explaining consciousness. That's kind of the whole point of the hard problem.
Philosophy of mind isn't trying to take over that role. It's more about what doors should be opened or closed as science proceeds.
Quoting 180 Proof
It's just a person who experiences no qualia. That's pretty much the view of people like Dennett.
"A person who experiences no qualia" is not what is meant by a conscious person.
You're including qualia as part of the meaning of "conscious." That's a common usage, but we can also distinguish between functional consciousness, like the ability to respond to light or sound, and the accompanying awareness in the form of visual and audio images.
Think about voice recognition software. It's performing functions of consciousness, but without any awareness. It can use "green" appropriately, but it doesn't have the experience of seeing green.
1. External awareness
and
2. Internal awareness (self-awareness)
It maybe hard to prove that a being physically identical to me, isn't "conscious" (1) but I sure can say that this being may not be self-aware (2). Heck, even I am not always, completely self-aware. In short we're ourselves q-zombies (lacking self-aware consciousness) for at least two-thirds of the time we're awake. Variations in that value (self-awareness index) will exist, separating the, how shall I put it?, truly conscious (1 & 2) and "unconscious" q-zombie (1 only).
Could there be something nonphysical about self-awareness? :chin:
Say something more about what 1 and 2 are.
I'm afraid I'll need a mind upgrade which, at present, I can't afford for that!
I do not find the idea conceivable. No more than a square circle. Yeah, I can say the words “square circle.” But that doesn’t mean I can actually picture one. Nor can I picture a p-zombie. I do not believe our consciousness is a result of nothing but the laws of physics, and we just haven’t figured out the equations yet, or spotted the neuronal activity responsible. I’m leaning toward panpsychism. But even if it’s not that, something else is happening. And without that something else, why would a thing that looks like us, and has all the physical we have, act as though it has that something else? Why would it say the things it would have to say to make us think it was conscious if it was not?
We can give a robot equipment to detect all the things we detect with our senses, and to act in different ways when it detects different things. But it would not say it has subjective experience, is conscious, and behave in ways that would convince us. We would have to give it programming in addition to what it already has in order for it to say those things and behave in those ways.
Why would a p-zombie say those things and behave in those ways? It would need something else to actually be conscious, or to say those things and behave in those ways despite [/i]not[/i] being conscious.
OTOH, if physicalism is the explanation for our consciousness, and we simply haven’t figured out the math or spotted the neuronal activity responsible, then, again, p-zombies could not exist. Because there is nothing that could be missing from their entirely-physical existence that would make them less conscious than we are.
Hopefully explaining my thinking clearly enough.
I agree with you, and would have said exactly the same, although I've recently come to understand it from a different perspective. In practical terms, I don't expect that such an artificial being could currently exist, but it's not a logical impossibility. The point of it is that, should there be a [s]being[/s] entity which seems to have a subjective inner existence, but is just an exquisitely-tuned organic-looking robot, that could respond to questions like 'how do you feel?' with plausible answers, there would be no empirical way to ascertain whether it really was a subject of experience. The point being that the nature of subjectivity is not something that can be empirically ascertained.
How can there be one, when successful arguments affirming such conception have been given?
Strong argument against the empirical reality of one, and recognizing it as such…..that may be inconceivable..
Do you believe the 'something else' affects behaviour in a way that disagrees with predictions from physics? If so, why haven't scientists noticed any discrepancies?
If not, the p-zombie would 'say the things it would have to say to make us think it was conscious' because ... physics. It would cry and laugh and complain about pain just like we do, and our first impression would be that it must be lying, pretending, acting. But no. We would be misinterpreting everything it did and said. Things wouldn't mean the same inside to the p-zombie.
By the way, I think it is better to try to conceive of a whole separate universe of p-zombies, instead of one walking among us. I also think it is better not to consider an exact copy: that leads to unnecessary distractions and confusions. So try to conceive of a universe with exactly the same physical laws as ours, and similar enough to have an Earth with humans like us on it, including scientists and philosophers. However, it is an Earth peopled with strangers, forging its own future. Must this universe contain your 'something else'?
As I said, “My understanding is…” In our universe, I don’t see the possibility of p-zombies, regardless of the nature of consciousness, in the same way I don’t see the possibility of square circles. But if we are supposed to be imagining universes that operate under different principles, then sure, I guess there could be p-zombies, and there could be square circles.
I think this must be drawing a distinction between the 'laws' and the 'stuff' a universe is made of? In order for there to be any relevant difference, given that conscious humans are just pieces of universe, earth.
It would have to master semantics and syntax, among other things. How do you derive them from physics?
I wouldn't put it like that. I see it as a thought experiment which can clarify how much science someone accepts. It hasn't worked with @Patterner yet. @Wayfarer seems dubious about the science.
Usually, physicalists don't accept p-zombies whereas others do. Usually the arguments go the way Sean Carroll describes in section Passive Mentalism and Zombies in his essay Consciousness and the Laws of Physics in https://philarchive.org/rec/CARCAT-33. This essay was a reply to the panpyschist Philip Goff.
If philosophical zombies are possible, that basically means that the reason for you saying or writing "I'm conscious" has nothing to do with the fact that you really are conscious. The fact that your body is saying it, and it's also simultaneously true, is a complete coincidence.
The anti-zombie stance is, I'm saying I'm conscious precisely because I am conscious. My consciousness is directly connected to the casual chain that causes my body to say or write "I'm conscious"
Pardon me - what science am I dubious about? "Because....physics" is not much to go on.
'...physics' was short for physics, chemistry, abiogenesis, biology, evolution, and so on. There are scientific theories of how language developed in hominids. Perhaps we don't have the right one yet, but I'm sure one exists.
If one finds things that exist inconceivable, one is in trouble, philosophically.
No, I do not mean physicalism. I'm saying that all behaviour, including language, can be predicted from physics. That is compatible with physicalism, but it is not physicalism. I'll recommend Sean Carroll again: section Passive Mentalism and Zombies in his essay Consciousness and the Laws of Physics at https://philarchive.org/rec/CARCAT-33 .
If you have a P-Zombie that has a separated experience not in direct relation to the function of the P-Zombie's automation as a system, then you have a P-Zombie and a qualia experience as two separate things.
So how can we prove a conscious human with proposed qualia, is in fact not already a P-Zombie at the first stage of function, in essence an autonomous machine that is "leaking qualia" as a byproduct?
Didn't you watch Bladerunner? :grin:
We can say the words “square circle.” Does that mean we conceive of square circles? I don’t believe so. We are only saying words. But there is no such thing as a square circle, and there is no possibility of such a thing. I don’t think being able to string together any combination of words is the same thing as conceiving of the thing represented by every particular string of words.
However, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we are conceiving of square circles when we say the words “square circles.” In which case, I disagree with the idea that conceivability implies possibility. A square circle is not possible.
I was in agreement with @Patterner's point. Reading Carroll's 2021 article, he seems to base it on there being only two options. A mental (phenomenal) ontology would change the laws of physics in some places (and no such is detected), or it's just "passive mentalism" (epiphenomenal).
But if phenomenality has always been baked into our universe 'stuff' (as he also calls it), why would it not just be part of the causal processes, why would it need to change the laws of physics in places in our universe? So therefore I couldn't get on board with his p-zombie points.
I appreciated how firm and clear he is on e.g. "From the point of view of particle physics, a brain is not a densely packed system; indeed, it’s practically empty space. There is no physical rationale for expecting the dynamics of the Core Theory to break down in such an environment, regardless of how complex the overall situation is. For any particular electron or nucleus, almost all of the rest of the brain is so far away as to be essentially irrelevant."
But I wasn't sure how his preferred 'weak emergence' would be real phenomenality as he indicates, as he seemed to switch to talking about levels of explanation. He refers to functions (brain functions not just wave function maths) but I wasn't sure what version of functionalism in Phil of Mind he would ascribe to.
I don't know if they're conscious or not. That's the point.
The possibility of p-zombies is a much more rigorous question than just analysing your own ignorance of consciousness.
It's metaphysical possibility we're considering. That boils down to conceivibility. If I couldn't conceive of Deckard being an p-zombie, then I wouldn't say I don't know if he is. I would say he couldn't be.
Since I say I don't know, that shows it's conceivable, and therefore metaphysically possible.
It's what David Chalmers meant by it.
Cool.
All I’m saying is for the guy that thinks up….conceives……a thing, then for him to be presented with an argument implying he didn’t think it, might cause him to seriously reject the argument.
Invoking square circles in juxtaposition to the topic here, is a categorical error, in that both squares and circles are established knowledge regarding classes of objects in general, such that the combining of them leads to a contradiction. For that which is not established knowledge, on the other hand, the contradiction may still arise, but not necessarily, depending on the conceptions being combined. In the case of p-zombies, the conception itself combines other conceptions, if not actually deemed knowledge, at least do not contradict each other, from which follows the conception itself is not invalid as the conception of square circles would necessarily be. Which is to say….it cannot be said the guy didn’t really conceive it, or, which is the same thing, there is no strong argument for the inconceivability of the very thing the guy conceived. I mean….the guy can bend a listener’s ear for days about that thing, so for him to be told he didn’t conceive it, or what he conceived wasn’t really what he thought it to be, says more about the listener than the guy.
Maybe a compromise. Maybe the strong argument should be against the rationality of the conception of p-zombies, rather than the conceivability thereof. It must be the case there is no argument strong enough to negate the conceivability of them, insofar as they reside in the domain of discourse, where the inconceivable is never found.
Ok.
Frank, patterner here is also attacking the naive notion of "conceivability". If something's conceivable just because you can string a couple words together and have no idea why those concepts don't actually work out, just because of personal ignorance, then you can't really make the sorts of conclusions that Chalmers makes. The naive notion of conceivability does not work in this context.
You responded to a post I made three years ago. I'm not too interested in explaining Chalmers' agenda. If you're satisfied with your conclusion, that's fine with me. Bon voyage. :grin:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie,
This seems to me to be the `real' zombie argument, about another world, or another universe. (I don't like Chalmer's use of 'laws', nor do I like Carroll's use of 'stuff', nor your use of both. :smile: )
I tend to agree.
Right. So then we can't conceive of beings like us, who have the same vocabulary as we do, but with no mental states. They're impossible.
Quoting RogueAIQuoting RogueAIExactly.
I mean, that's my view, which I am pretty confident of but I am of course not the final arbiter, and plenty of smart people disagree.
I wonder how they argue p-zombies could develop a language that has referents to mental states.
They don't. The hallmark of metaphysical possibility is that you can have God create the situation however you like. God made the p-zombies that way.
There isn't a big difference between metaphysical and logical possibility. Remember, logical possibility just means you haven't conjured a contradiction.
As far as I'm concerned, that is physicalism pure and simple. Sorry, but I don't rate Carroll as a philosopher.
That's true, but that forces proponents of the conceivability of p-zombies to basically use the "god did it" explanation. That sounds kind of like a copout.
When a modest little argument becomes a devastating wedge, it's a thing of beauty. It's unfortunate that there isn't enough interest in philosophy of mind on this site to follow Chalmers' artistry. But there isn't.
Exactly! Although in practice, it most often turns out to be an appeal to scientific method as the arbiter of reality.
It doesn't follow that the p-zombie is "inconceivable" merely that it is implausible, and even incoherent in the sense that we cannot find any cogent explanation for how it could be possible.
:100:
So many of the arguments against physicalism presuppose dualism, and are simply question begging. I think we are so encultured to thinking dualistically about mind and body that (at least in the West) it is hard for people to recognize that they are begging the question.
Exactly right. The argument makes two assumptions: there is a property of persons called “conscious experience”, and that we can conceive of beings identical in both biology and behavior without this property. Something, whatever that may be in fact, is missing in the p-zombie, which is an odd stretch because both are physically identical.
It seems to me the existence this property must be proven of the former before it can be said to be missing from the latter. But I’ve never seen anyone able to say exactly what it is. Until the fact of conscious experience is proven, p-zombies will remain inconceivable.
in the end it all appears a clever trick to smuggle dualism past the customs.
I'm sure I read in the past that while Chalmers considers various options possible, he has leaned towards dualism. I'm not sure how reliable that source was though or why he does or did.
A specific subset of the p-zombie challenge is speech about having consciousness. I recall there's a name for that puzzle, perhaps even from Chalmers or he just used it. I don't know if the p-zombie helps unpack it and I find it very confusing to think about. I'm not sure how to make any progress on it, under monism or whatever.
Most people have conscious experiences, and so take that as a given. Do you have conscious experiences?
Experience is an act, not a thing. So while people are conscious and do experience, they do not have conscious experiences. There is no need to invoke other things and substances with noun phrases.
From what I’ve read he leans towards “property dualism”. I’m not sure what his views are these days.
But yes the language used to abstract the description of things from the things themselves has led to the confusion in philosophy of mind, in my opinion.
I went for a run.
I had a thought.
Are song, run, or thought nouns in those sentences?
SUBTOPIC: Split Thoughts
?? Patterner, [i]et al[/I],
ON THE TOPIC: against the concievability of philosophical zombies
(COMMENT)
There are many facets to philosophy. A "philosophical zombie" is a philosopher with no independent thought on the subjects of knowledge, consciousness, anomalies or nature in reality, and existence. It is a philosopher that can only regurgitate the thoughts of others or what they have been taught.
The use of "zombie" in this manner is cute. In this case, to appreciate the descriptor relative to the philosopher. One has to mentally conjure the characteristics of the unreal (zombie). Whatever the capacity one assigns to the zombie is strictly fantasy. Yet, the idea of a zombie being real is a metaphysical notion.
? cute
I sang a song.
I went for a run.
I had a thought.
Are song, run, or thought nouns in those sentences?[/reply]
(COMMENT)
SHORT ANSWER: Yes[i]![/I]
Technically, they are the "object" (noun) of each sentence for the "verb."
Most Respectfully,
R
Yes.
Whew!! Thanks for the addendum, the add-on. I was having trouble with the post, but…..hey, no worries…..I’m all better now.
The abstractions vs actual is another relevant issue. I was meaning the causal issue, like how qualia can cause physical speech about having qualia (a problem if they're passive as Carroll pointed out, but also for monism? And for p-zombie).
Per Wikipedia, Chalmers' naturalistic property dualism involves "psychophysical laws that determine which physical systems are associated with which types of qualia. He further speculates that all information-bearing systems may be conscious, leading him to entertain the possibility of conscious thermostats and a qualified panpsychism he calls panprotopsychism."
Whether something's information-bearing would seem to depends on the context though, like needs to be assessed from the outside and over time maybe. Similar to something having a 'function'. How can that objectively in itself trigger qualia. But it does seem like we experience functions, like vision overall rather than like optical electrical pathways inside the brain.
Music is vibrations in the air, over some period of time. Certainly an action. How do you know under which circumstances actions are nouns?
Things act; acts are not themselves things. We can see this empirically.
Though we treat acts as things in language (and it’s extremely difficult to do otherwise), we ought not to include them in our ontology as existing things because we risk reifying them. So though it may be necessary for linguistic purposes, acts are unnecessary and even confusing for any species of ontology. This applies also to the qualities, properties, characteristics, or attributes of things, which often take the form of adjectives.
I don’t believe there is anything beyond the things or objects involved. For example, I don’t see a color, I see a colorful thing.
Ontology is the broad categorisation of types of beings, derived from the Greek root, ?n, ‘being’. In traditional philosophy it was often paired with metaphysics - you would study metaphysics and ontology side by side. And as metaphysics has fallen out of favour so too has ontology in the classical sense. Nowadays you encounter it in computer science where an ontology defines a set of representational primitives with which to model a domain of knowledge or discourse. I like to think of it as distinguishing the kinds of beings there are, and also to distinguish between beings and things (this usage is not considered standard but I think it’s defensible.)
In the context of philosophical zombies and the nature of consciousness, the question revolves around the kind of being or existence that consciousness has. Materialists are compelled to argue that it has the same kind of being or existence as physical objects, as their ontology is monistic (only matter or matter-energy is real), meaning that consciousness (or mind) must be a product of (epiphenomenon of, emergent from) matter. Dualists argue that mind and the physical are a separate substances (and note, ‘substance’ has a different meaning in philosophy than in everyday speech), idealists that everything is in some sense explicable to or reducible to mind or states of being.
I tend to side with the idealists although I won’t divert this thread with that argument (for which see the OP Mind Created World.)
Thank you!
Sorry for the silly jargon. By ontology I mean our beliefs about "the nature of being" or "that which is". It's like a list of that which exists, and accordingly, that which demands consideration.
It’s quite simple, in my mind. The act and that which acts are the exact same thing. So when you observe the act of a punch or a kick, for example, you're observing a particular person moving in such a fashion. Despite our use of two or more nouns which imply that we are considering two or more things, there are not two or more persons, places, or things that we are observing. We can observe only one.
So in my opinion only one deserves a place in the pantheon of being while the rest, like acts, abstract objects, fomrs, qualities, properties, are merely conventions of language.
Well there’s only a few ways to make this question intelligible, one being: whether there is a good reason (for philosophy) to imagine how we might not know other people are dead inside? What philosophy is conceiving is someone who looks and acts like a person, but is… (and here we are to imagine as full a context as we can, and really get specific about what the criteria would have to look like, in order for this fantasy to make the most sense it can (to make this depiction the “strongest” it can be)). The reason it is important is that learning about what can go wrong, how we might fail to know, tells us about how we—and how to—see others as human and themselves, as in: how being human matters to us.
Now we’d have to read a looooot of philosophy about robots and automatons, etc. I’ll just spoil Wittgenstein’s ending. The fact is that we do not know the other is human, because that is just not how “knowing” works here. Knowledge in other cases is different, but the way knowing another person works is that we act towards them as a person, or do not. We accept them as a person in pain or we ignore them. We acknowledge their life as different than ours, or we reject what matters to them. Wittgenstein, in the Investigations #420, would say (as would Marx) we see them only as a lawyer, or a pawn, or a hero, or a junkie, instead of any more or different than that, as we might see them as without color, avoiding the effects on them of racism.
The other question (analogy) this could possibly be, would be answered: yes, you can be dead to yourself, driven by a desire that is not your own.
I'm entirely on board with your second paragraph. Our language doesn't differentiate between nouns of different ontological types. I really don’t know if it’s true, but the story has always been that an Inuit language has twenty different words for "snow." Which makes sense, since snow has played such a huge roll in their lives and culture. They literally needed the specific information, so the language has it. We don't need different words for nouns of different ontological types, or we'd have them. Still, it would be nice. Not just q because it would be interesting. Our language plays a role in how we think. Change the language, and you never know what will happen.
But that's only how we label things when discussing language. The sentence "I had a conscious experience of the song" remains the same, regardless of how we analyze the sentence, and label "conscious experience" and "song." Both things? Both acts? Whatever. The important thing is that something different happens when the vibrations in the air envelop me than when they envelop a rock. Or when they envelop a robot that we have programmed to dance, emit drops of liquid from the structures we gave it that resemble human eyes, or reproduce the vibrations in the air if the patterns of those vibrations have been previously stored in the robot's memory.
The difference between the scenario of vibrations enveloping you and vibrations enveloping a rock are the objects involved. The same difference occurs in the scenario of a human vs a robot, or person vs another person—the objects are different, thus they move differently and respond differently to the vibrations in the air.
And that, to me, is why p-zombies are inconceivable. Given two persons physically and operationally identical, how can one be missing "conscious experience"? It's incoherent and impossible to consider, and only question-begging can push the argument a little further.
But you said this:Quoting NOS4A2After several exchanges, I believe you're saying conscious experience doesn't exist because it's not a thing that someone can have. It's an act, but our language treats it like a physical thing. While I agree that language could be more precise, in everyday usage and in discussions of language, I don't know why considering a conscious experience to be a response instead of a thing means they don't exist, or we don't have them.
I just mean we literally don't have them, ontologically speaking, that we are not in fact considering "conscious experience" as such, we are only considering the physical body in a roundabout way. It is my contention that thought experiments such as p-zombies are exercises in dancing around the facts of biology.
Is my response to X ... how to word it ... the biological equivalent of the robot's mechanical/electronic response to X? And is it possible, at least on theory, to build robots that make the same mistake (if that's the correct word) we have always made, and come up with thought experiments that are exercises in dancing around the facts of electronics?
Not to worry. I already disagree him in other ways.
It doesn't seem to address the fact that the Hard Problem and P-zombies are exactly meant to invoke the gap science is trying to fill.
Unless you can fully understand consciousness in physical terms (I do not believe this is hte case, but even if not, we don't ahve that understanding yet) then p-zombies are coherent until we do (and it excludes that possibility). 180 Proof made a similar error earlier in the thread (though, it was years ago). "identical" to a 'conscious being' would be a conscious being. Being "physically identical" is the actual case in the TE.
But i agree with Seth - it's a very weak argument against Physicalism, for sure. It's just that he assumes he's right:
This precludes anything but a physicalist account for it to be a decent objection, i think. I also think Seth (among others) overblows the correlation we find between certain parts of hte brain and fairly imprecise conscious experience. If the brain is a receiver, nothing here has any really weight on the question/s. But it would certainly rule out an emergent (from neural activity) account of consciousness
I like this. I keep trying to imagine a p-zombie kicking up it's feet at the end of a hard day and drinking a couple beers to take the edge off and I keep not being able to do it. I can, superficially, but when I try to pair my imagining with a being that has no mental states, it's impossible.
What would the history of p-zombie world be? Is there a coherent story that could be told where p-zombies evolved like we did and developed language, like we did? How could p-zombie language have any referents to mental states?
It seems to me that needs accounting for. Why would something that has no subjective experience - something for which there is nothing it is like to be, to itself - ever develop language about these things. If asked "Are you conscious?", why would it say "Yes"?
Why are we assuming language? That seems a conscious ability, whereas we're talking about physically identical, yet non-conscious entities.
That is not how I've ever understood any version of the TE.
p-zombies are physically the same, yet unconscious. No idea why we are assuming they're behaving exactly the same? If i've got that wrong, then I have got that wrong.
They're supposed to act the same as us: talking, fighting, warring, yelling out "Ouch!" when they smash their toe, crying watching Schindler's List, etc. They wouldn't, of course, which is why they're incoherent.
No, they wouldn't, but I don't understand how its possible it could be contended that they're 'supposed' to . So, I have no idea where to go with this now :lol:
On the outside they act exactly the same. They show happiness and sadness, but they don't undergo the experience.
Replace p-zombie with a computer that perfectly simulates human personality. Does the computer feel sadness when it cries? That is basically the question.
Of course you will say "No! The computer is not biological". Here is where p-zombie comes into play; they have a brain and it works just like yours, they are made of flesh and bones, but they don't feel or think, they just act as though they do.
For me, the question hinges entirely on mind-body dualism, I think 180 proof said something similar as well.
The question is surely related to solipsism as well.
I don't really see those elements as relevant (at least certainly not necessary) to the Hard problem. For my part, when i consider this TE in the HP context, I imagine a being, physically exactly the same as a typical human but without conscious experience (i.e, that's the only difference) meaning there is no sadness or happiness. They do not have the experience required to inform that. It can't be 'shown' without hte experience. My job is to figure out the difference between the p-zombie i've described, and a human with conscious experience.
I am under the impression that this requires biting the "consciousness is not emergent from neural activity" bullet hard, but nothing else - only serves to preclude a fully physicalist account of consciousness, and all the interesting questions are still in the air (what, where from, how, why etc..) about consciousness.
By your own argument, there is. The p-zombie would be biologically wired to act like us.
Quoting AmadeusD
Because one of the versions of the hard problem is "When will a collection of physical states C be conscious (chimpanzee) or un-conscious (rock)". If p-zombie is physically possible, there will no distinguishing criteria for what C will do.
Quoting AmadeusD
That seems to be what it implies.
I don't understand what you mean.
You say the difference is that we can program computers to act like us; a p-zombie could be neurologically programmed to act like us.
You say "But there's no reason to think p-zombies would act like us.". I presented a reason.
My turn to not understand. :grin:
How would the p-zombies, which do not possess consciousness, come to be programmed to speak and act as though they did?
If mind-body dualism is true, they would simply have no soul.
If physicalism is true, I don't see any way; anything with our neurological set-up would be conscious. Unless you come up with a physicalist version of p-zombie where the zombie acts the way we do because the neurological set-up is the same ours EXCEPT for a certain property X that gives us consciousness. That would an essentialist view of consciousness within physicalism, but that is pushing the meaning of p-zombie.
Right. If physicalism is absolute, then p-zombies - exact physical duplicates of us, down to the smallest detail - without consciousness are not a possibility. Any physical duplicate would be conscious.
If there is something like dualism, panpsychism, or whatever other ideas there are, and we remove that from an exact duplicate, so there is only the physical, and there is no consciousness, then there is no reason they would say Yes if asked if they are conscious, or have words for such concepts in their language.
If it is their brain that prompts them to say yes, there would be a reason.
If I asked a p-zombie if it was conscious, I would think its brain would prompt it to say something like, "What is 'conscious'?" Why would a computer that had no programming or memory related to consciousness think it was conscious, or come up with the idea on its own? If a p-zombie with no consciousness, nothing but stimulus and response, existed, why would it answer other than the way the computer would?
The premise of p-zombies is that they would not ask that. They act exactly the same as us.
Quoting Patterner
If you train an AI on comments talking about things such as feelings and so on, the AI would talk as if it is conscious.
A square circle that was shaped like a pyramid and made entirely of chocolate flavored whipped cream flew into a black hole, lived there for a year, changed its mind, and flew back out.
Quoting Deleted userYes. But if you didn't train it that way, why would it? If you didn't train p-zombies that way, why would they?
But if we are asked if we have attribute x, and we don't have it or don't know what x is (e.g., telepathy), we would either say, "no" or "what are you talking about?". We don't (usually) lie and pretend we have x. The P-zombie isn't conscious. In so far as it knows things, it would know it's not conscious. So when asked if it's conscious, you're saying it would lie? If so, the zombies aren't acting like us. If not, then by their own admission they're not conscious.
Then the burden of proof is on you to prove that p-zombies are as incoherent as square circles or the such.
Quoting Patterner
Because the premise is that they behave like us. We humans say "Yes." to "Are you conscious?". So they would as well.
Quoting RogueAI
From this fragment you can deduce the lack of understanding of the concept of a p-zombie. The zombie does not know anything, does not feel anything, it does not think. It would not go "Huh, I guess I don't know what that thing you are talking about refers to". If asked if it is conscious, it will say "Yes" because that is what we would do.
It makes little sense because it's importing all of the requirements of success into the experiment. I don't see how that matters - the issue, surely, is whether or not a physically identical being would be conscious, or not. So, a p-zombie, to me, should be conceived as physically absolutely identical but not conscious. To me, that's the bullet to bite. I don't really grok how one could, or could not, confirm or deny the potential for a being acting fully conscious, yet not being so. Begs the question, surely.
So I'm supposed to think my p-zombie doppelganger will be able to do my job effectively and navigate the world without knowing anything and/or thinking? How would that work, exactly?
Can a p-zombie lie?
Isn't lying a behavior*? Also, would p-zombieland even have the word "lie" in its language? If not, then their language would be a lot different than ours, if so, how could zombies come up with a word like "lie"?
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-to-know-pathological-liars
It's certainly intentional, but it's also behavioral. If zombies can't lie, then they're not behaviorally the same as us, which they're supposed to be.
Lying is telling something other than what you know to be the case (truth). P-zombies know nothing and intend nothing. So they fail to lie. They would also have the word "lie" in the language they seem to speak, but they wouldn't be thinking about the way they use language.
Quoting RogueAI
Lying refers to both mind and physical action. P-zombies have no mind so "lying" is definitionally outside of the concept of p-z.
Behaviourally they are the exact same as us, definitionally.
If lying is a behavior, and p-zombies can't lie, then they're behaviorally different from us. I suppose one could argue that lying is not a behavior, but that seems pretty counter-intuitive.
What about my other question: would zombies have a word for lying?
That is what I just did successfully.
Quoting RogueAI
The issue is that you are not clear when you ask these question, leaving semantic broadness to be used to bring the argument in another direction.
P-zombies can utter the word "lie". Are they invoking the concept of a lie in their mind when they say "lie"? No, they have no mind.
Suppose we have a world similar to ours was 50 million years ago. There are little p-zombie hamsters running around avoiding p-zombie dinosaurs. The p-zombie hamsters evolve into p-zombie humans. You're claiming the p-zombie humans would go around talking about lies and occasionally accusing each other of lying? How would their language have any referents to mental states?
I am not sure how biological and linguistic evolution would be different in the absence of mind, and I don't even wanna think about it, but it is tangential to the matter.
If p-zombies in p-zombieland never come up with referents to mental states, then their language would always be different than ours, and their behaviors would be different as well, since their mouths would never be uttering words that refer to mental states.
If a zombie can't think, what do you call the activity it's brain is doing? If you have one solve a math problem and look at what it's brain is doing with a brain scanner, you'll observe it's brain is doing something. If that something isn't "thinking", what is it?
That reasoning rests on the redutionist materialism doctrine that all mental states map to neurological states.
The zombie brains have to be doing some kind of information processing. If that's not called "thinking" what is it called? P-thinking?
A p-zombie has some kind of behaviour triggered by a causal chain that starts in the outside world. A sleepy plant closes when touched by something. The plant is not thinking, yet it reacts to the outside world. A p-zombie would receive light, sound, smell input, and react accordingly.
I don't know. It is you people who brought up all these pointless questions. I am just explaining something that can easily be searched up on Google.
The premise of the TE is what it is. Nobody here came up with it. We're just discussing the premise. A couple of us are saying it is not valid.
I don't know what TE is. What is happening here is me having to explain over and over that p-zombies don't have minds. And then people asking me about p-dinosaurs and p-evolution and p-art and whatnot.
Honestly, I don't know about p-art and p-relationships and p-politics. I don't care about p-zombies, it is a derivative issue from deeper issues that have been addressed plenty in the history of philosophy. See.
I think a p-justice system would be a lot different than ours too. Intent would not be a factor in things, whereas it's a huge factor in ours. And would p-zombies even have the concept of punishment? Implied in punishment is the idea of being put in unpleasant circumstances to cause changes in behavior. "Unpleasant" doesn't even mean anything to a zombie.
What are your thoughts?
Thought Experiment.
TE is Thought Experiment. This particular one is about exact physical duplicates of us, but with no consciousness, which behave exactly like us in all ways. Including answering "Yes" when asked if they water conscious.
I say the TE is invalid. If they were only receiving imput from their senses, from inside and outside their bodies, and only reacting to the stimuli as the laws of physics allow and require, they would not be thinking of consciousness, or saying they have it when asked.
They are "thinking", in the information processing sense, the same way that we are. It is just that these thoughts are not accompanied by the same phenomenal experiences ours do (i.e. vocalizations, visualizations). Their thoughts may take the form of sentences ("I will take a shower soon"). They just don't experience these internal sentences, any more than they experience external sentences.
Do they think about consciousness? They would be puzzled by the concept, that is for sure. But so many here are puzzled by it too. No great difference. They might equate it to awareness. They are aware of external stimuli, because they respond to them, and they are aware of internal stimuli, because they act upon them. Therefore, in their "minds", they are conscious.
Would they have subjective experience or self-awareness beyond that of a robot that we can build that reacts to stimuli?
By definition, no.
Quoting RogueAI
I think so. I think these are cognitive, not dependent on subjectivity.
I do not think a robot we can build that response to stimuli would think it was conscious. I don't think a bunch of them living together would come up with the idea of consciousness if it had not been programmed into them.
The premise is a world of p-zombies physically identical to us, but with no consciousness anywhere.
I think hypericin in right. Otherwise, we would have to assume a p-zombie could successfully navigate the world and do all sorts of complex jobs without having any knowledge. The concept of p-zombie researchers exploring the frontiers of science without having any knowledge is incoherent.
Quoting https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/zombies
Being that a belief is a conscious process, a p-zombie would not have beliefs.
A p-zombie is a machine, that acts the way it does, to abuse a Descartes quote, "because of the organised disposition of its organs".
5 minutes ago you believed the earth was round, but had no conscious awareness of this belief.
I chuckled when reading this, but not in a condescending way, it reminds me of "The game" or "You are now breating manually" of 2000s internet.
Andrew M. Colman dictionary of psychology defines belief as "Any *proposition (1) that is accepted as true on the basis of inconclusive evidence.
Ted Honderich companion to philosophy as "A mental state, representational in character, taking a proposition (either true or false) as its content and involved, together with motivational factors, in the direction and control of voluntary behaviour."
Simon Blackburn dictionary of philosophy as "To believe a proposition is to hold it to be true".
All published by Oxford, bold is mine.
What you refer to as cognitive seems to mean neurological, which can be explained mechanistically. To believe something invokes a mind. Without a mind, no belief, unless you are reductionist. If you are an eliminativist, there is indeed no belief, and that is fine (but then all of us are p-zombies, and consciousness is an illusion).
Are you being literal with your use of the term “incoherent”? Because prima facie it doesn’t appear to be a contradiction.
Something like a Boston Dynamics robot installed with ChatGPT is quite capable in principle of turning on the Large Hadron Collider, reading its data, and then writing out a natural language description of the result. A p-zombie scientist is exactly like this except that its body is made of skin and bones, not metal, and that its “software” is much more advanced than any current AI.
It has “knowledge” only in the sense that LLM’s have “knowledge”. It isn’t conscious. It is simply capable of processing input and reacting accordingly, whether that be with movement or speech.
I agree with this. But also
[i]Do you have knowledge?
ChatGPT
Yes, I have a vast amount of information stored from a diverse range of sources up until my last update in January 2022. Feel free to ask me about a wide array of topics, and I'll do my best to provide you with accurate and helpful information.[/i]
So, does ChatGPT know things?
That's an ambiguous question. As it says, it has access to "a vast amount of information". But it doesn't have conscious beliefs like we do, and our kind of knowledge is something akin to "justified true belief".
That's true. I feel like we've beaten this topic to death.
People seldom if ever truly get these definitions "right", which is why we can't merely refer to them. These seem to only weakly support the association of belief with conscious awareness anyway. The strongest one,
Quoting Deleted user
Still seems to accommodate unconscious beliefs.
Quoting Deleted user
Not neurological, I mean it to refer to the information processing capacity of the brain. A belief is an informational state where a proposition is held to be true. This informational state can be instantiated by a human brain, a p-zombie brain, and the right kind of AI. Whether ChatGPT has beliefs is truly hard to say.
Quoting Deleted user
The Game, the movie? Nice, one of my favs. I'm glad I never saw that meme, I had a horrible spell when I was young where I "forgot" how to breathe automatically and so I couldn't sleep for 11 days!
I have been trying to explain that for two pages now, without success.
Quoting hypericin
Unfortunately there is ambiguity in the word conscious(ness). It is not important whether a belief is at the forefront of our minds in a given moment (subconscious or otherwise), or whether we are awaken. Something without mind has no belief.
Quoting hypericin
What does information mean? Is it abstract concepts summoned by the mind? P-zombies can't do that, and under physicalism nobody can. Is it nervous impulses? Then it is neurological.
That's at one extreme, shall we say. At the other extreme, we have a behavioral p-zombie, which walks talks, looks, and behaves exactly like a human but is completely different on the inside. Generally such a description would not be ascribed the label "p-zombie", but if we accept that it is a continuum of characterizations then I think this description is an acceptable addition. Personally I find it no less practical than Chalmer's own. For example, examples like this have helped us hone our intuition about what might pass off as a test of consciousness and what might not - we have concluded that a third-person behavioral test is insufficient.
A more practical variation, would be something more in the middle where we omit Chalmers' requirement that it be physically identical, and put other more lenient constraints on how much it is allowed to differ from the physical structure of humans. Variants of this description are useful in both philosophical discussions and in scientific investigations. For example, it is exactly this analogy that is being increasingly discussed by neuroscientists wanting to devise tests for consciousness. eg:
Bayne et al 2024, "Tests for consciousness in humans and beyond", https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38485576/.
Has anyone done a formal review of the different forms of p-zombie?
I don't think that's the point of Chalmer's thought-experiment.
Previously my view had been that you could catch a p-zombie out with a simple question, like 'what are you afraid of?' or 'what is the most embarrasing thing that ever happened to you?' or even 'how are you?' As the p-zombie has no inner states or feelings whatever, it could never be embarrased or fearful or answer how it is. So, 'gotcha!'
But then I realised that if it was realistic enough - and since I first starting thinking about the issue, ChatGPT has come along - it could fake an answer to those questions.
And that's what made me realise the point of the thought-experiment. Providing that the fake was totally convincing, it could be a very well-constructed mannequin or robot that says 'I fear this' or 'that would be embarrasing', 'I feel great' - and there would be no empirical way of knowing whether the entity was conscious or faking. So I take Chalmer's point to be that this is an inherent limitation of objective or empiricist philosophy - that whether the thing in front of you is real human being or a robot is impossible to discern, because the first-person nature of consciousness is impossible to discern empirically, as per his Hard Problem paper.
Same with us, no? There also is "no empirical way of knowing" (yet / ever) whether any person is "conscious or faking". Which seems more reasonable, or likely, to you, Wayfarer (or anyone): (A) every human is a zombie with a(n involuntary) 'theory of mind'? or (B) every entity is a 'conscious' monad necessarily inaccessible / inexplicable to one another's 'subjectivity'? or (C) mind is a 'mystery' too intractable for science, even in principle, to explain? or (D) mind is a near-intractably complex phenomenon that science (or AGI) has yet to explain? :chin:
I'll try to find the reference, but one of Chalmer's works describe a p-zombie as being exactly physically identical. In other words, not only that we cannot empirically find any physical difference using our technology today (fMRI etc) but that we couldn't even with the most advanced physical technology conceivable. At that point, the only way that the p-zombie can be different from a human is that some form of dualism is true. And that is the conceivability argument in that case - that it is conceivable that some form of dualism exists.
Yes. And I find this particular variant of p-zombie to be very useful.
What's interesting is to try to define clearly what this p-zombie is, in the same form of description as in my prior paragraph. This alone as different variants, some of which are:
* Behavioural-p-zombie: A being that is obscured by a screen so that we cannot observe its nature in any way except through its textual and auditory behaviors. ie: LLMs and the Turing Test.
* Ancient-technology-p-zombie: A being that is empirically identical to humans in all measurable ways using the technology of 1st century scientists, except that it lacks phenomenal consciousness. This is a more precise variant of the behavioral p-zombie, with the addition that scientists of the day can open the skull and observe that there's a brain that looks the same. But they would have no means to identify any potential structural differences.
* Current-technology-p-zombie: Same as above but current technology. This p-zombie must have all the same physical brain structure as humans to the extent that we are unable to identify any differences via fRMI static results and dynamic sequences, or via close examination of neural structures. Many of the debates I see probably use this description.
* Future-technology-p-zombie: Same as above but with future technology that can scan the entire neural structure and sub-structures in in instant.
I think most arguments today apply to one or both of the last two. For example, discussions whether neural activity produce consciousness could be identified with either of the last two, depending on whether you're suggesting that some other physical structure may be present too (eg: Orch-OR).
To my point, I don't accept that this statement is true for any given conception of p-zombie. The form of p-zombie changes what we can do empirically. As someone with a reductive materialist viewpoint, I argue that at some point the p-zombie is sufficiently close to human physical structure that it is inconceivable that it doesn't have consciousness.
I would go further and say that modern-technology-p-zombies would be conceivable, but practically impossible. I can conceive of the possibility that dualism is true, and thus that even a future-technology-p-zombie would be empirically indistinguishable from a human. However, if dualism is false, then I hold that anything with the same neural structures as humans (as empirically measured via today's technology) will experience phenomenal consciousness. From a practical point of view, I go even further and state that I believe today's physics is sufficient to explain phenomenal consciousness (ie: our failure is a lack of knowledge rather than a systemic gap in the science). At that point, there is no need for dualism, so why I can still conceive of it as a possibility, I find it extremely unlikely.
(By the way, hi again Wayfarer after a long time, it's nice to see you still here and offering your views)
Odd reasoning, it seems to me. There is only one form of being that has 'the same neural structures as humans', that is, humans. If one were able to artificially re-create human beings de novo - that is, from the elements of the periodic table, no DNA or genetic technology allowed! - then yes, you would have created a being that is a subject of experience, but whether it is either possible or ethically permissible are obviously enormous questions.
Quoting Malcolm Lett
What form of dualism can you concieve of as possibly true? Hylomorphic? Cartesian? Some other variety? What do you think dualism means?
By the way, I put the question to ChatGPT which responded like so. The key phrase I took to be the following:
[quote=ChatGPT]...the absence of subjective experience in the philosophical zombie suggests that consciousness entails something more than just physical or observable properties. This leads to the conclusion that consciousness has aspects that are not fully captured by physical explanations alone, implying a need for an expanded understanding that possibly includes non-physical dimensions.[/quote]
In other words, that it would appear conscious, without actually being conscious. Again,the thought-experiment purports to demonstrate an inherent shortcoming in objective description in respect of ascertaining the reality of subjective states.
I could well be mistaken or overly simplistic in my understanding, but I believe I was just paraphrasing commonly stated descriptions of p-zombies in the lead-up to that section that you responded to. For example, in The Conscious Mind, Chalmers (1996), pg 96 "someone or something physically identical to me (or to any other conscious being), but lacking conscious experiences altogether". As I understand it, there's no room in that description for any kind of macro or micro physical difference between the p-zombie and the human. And that's regardless of the level of technology used to do a comparison, or even whether such a technology is used. The two are stated as being identical a priori, independent of measurement.
That form of p-zombie is the strictest kind, and its conceivability hinges on the conceivability of some form of metaphysics - ie: something outside of physics that has the conscious experience. This is the dualism to which I am referring.
The conceivability discussion of such a p-zombie annoys me because it used as an argument w.r.t. the possibility of empirically measuring consciousness (ie: for the purpose that you've mentioned), but in reality it's only a test for a person's belief. If I believe that metaphysical processes are not necessary (ie: physics is sufficient for consciousness), then I find the existence of such a p-zombie inconceivable. If I believe that a metaphysical reality is necessary, then I find the p-zombie not just conceivable but possible. Chalmers states quite clearly his bias, eg on (p 96) "I confess that the logical possibility of zombies seems equally obvious to me. A zombie is just something physically identical to me, but which has no conscious experience".
On the other hand, for this discussion so far I have taken an in-between stance and merely said that I find it conceivable that metaphysics is necessary, but I don't believe it to be so. In other words my view is:
1. dualism (existence of both physics + metaphysics) is conceivable
2a. under the a priori assumption that dualism is true, then I find p-zombies logically coherent and thus conceivable
2b. under the a priori assumption that dualism is false, then I find p-zombies logically incoherent and thus inconceivable
3. I hold to the conclusion that dualism is unnecessary to explain consciousness.
4. by Occam's Razor, I prefer the assumption that dualism is false, and I will act accordingly until proven otherwise.
5. However I accept that I cannot prove that dualism is false. Likewise, no-one can prove that it is true. Thus, the existence of p-zombies is conditional. It is possibly conceivable. It is not conceivable in an absolute sense. An individual may be able to conceive of it, but only because of their particular bias; while other individuals cannot.
To belabor my point, if you don't mind, and if I have surmised your own viewpoint correctly, you also reject the conceivability of a p-zombie that is physically identical in all ways to a human - ie: that it's both impossible and inconceivable for something physically identical to a human to be devoid of conscious experience. Not only that, but I find very few people accept such a description of a p-zombie - ie: they find it highly improbable. I take this to imply that they also find this particular variant of p-zombie inconceivable, but perhaps I am making invalid assumptions there.
(FYI, I am taking heavy inspiration from Chalmer's chain of implication: logical coherence --> conceivability --> logical possibility. I'm aware that that represents only one viewpoint, but I'm working within my own limitations).
No, I think your odd reasoning is correct. If Physicalism is true, then minds are a consequence of certain physical things in particular physical structures following specific physical processes. It naturally follows that, if you take one such physical thing which "contains a mind", if you will, and duplicate it such that now you have a second physical thing in the same physical structure following the same physical processes, it must also "contain a mind".
I don't understand what you're getting at here. Let me try and re-phrase it. You're saying that in this example, there's a p-zombie truly indistinguishable from a human.
So, it reacts and speaks as would a human, but it is not really a subject of experience at all.
The p-zombie in this example is a physical thing - quite literally, a physical object, albeit one that is indistinguishable from a human subject. So how does that constitute 'something outside of physics that has the conscious experience'? How is it 'outside of physics'?
(Incidentally, I agree that a p-zombie indistinguishable from a human is hard to imagine, but then, if you had advanced enough robotic technology, it might not be inconceivable. I think the replicants in Blade Runner were biological beings, even if they were the result of bioengineering, so I don't think they'd be considered p-zombies.)
I have the feeling that we have very different ideas of what metaphysics, and what dualism, mean, but let's get to that after clearing the first point up.
A robot is distinguishable from a human. Maybe on the outside they look similar, but you cut one open and there's wires instead of guts. Chalmers means indistinguishable down to the bone, down to the cells in their skin and blood and brains
To be completely frank, I think you're agreeing with me. Chalmers' view is totally bonkers.
But to be more coherent, what I'm trying to do in my own clumsy way is to summarise a particular viewpoint (which I don't hold to), in order to a) comment on why I don't like that viewpoint, and b) to argue for the need for people to be clearer about which kind of p-zombie they are talking about.
I'm being particularly clumsy by mixing those two together, but I can't help it.
I'm using Chalmer's viewpoint because I'm most familiar with it and because it appears to be representative of the general viewpoint held by a sizeable number of philosophers (I don't mean the majority, just that there are plenty who do hold to this). In any case, as I understand it, something is metaphysical if it has some form of existence that is independent of physics. Generally there is assumed to be interaction between the physical and metaphysical, but in some cases it may be only unidirectional - eg: as per epiphonemenalism applied to dualism. This is the Cartesian thesis, that the mind exists in some other plane of existence beyond the physical. According to that theory, a p-zombie according to Chalmer's description is conceivable - it's just a human that lacks a link to its metaphysical mind. Highly impractical and improbable, but conceivable nonetheless.
[UPDATE: I believe "metaphysics" is an area of study, whereas "metaphysical" is a supernatural existence. The two seem almost totally unrelated except for having similar names. I'm referring entirely to the latter. Happy to be corrected on terminology]
But most don't accept Cartesian dualism. And neither does Chalmers. He prefers panpsychism: the theory that everything is physical (no metaphysical stuff needed), but that there's some new fundamental physics that we can't yet measure. In an elaborate way, he uses his p-zombie to conclude that panpsychism is correct. And that outcome I cannot fathom. If everything is physical, then a p-zombie according to his description does not exist.
Don't you mean to say "that everything physical also is psychical"? What I remember from The Conscious Mind is that Chalmers thought that there could be psycho-physical laws ensuring that p-zombies could not exist (i.e. make it physically necessary that they were conscious) but that it was conceivable that such laws didn't exist and that they were not conscious (despite being physically identical to us).
Yes he does use psychical, but I'm paraphrasing to put it into the context of the discussion here.
What is psychical? If it's part of the physical realm, then it's some new fundamental physics that we don't know about. If it's not part of the physical realm, then it's metaphysical and we're back to dualism.
I see. Thanks for clearing that up.
Quoting Malcolm Lett
Descartes' form of dualism, in particular, does posit res cogitans, literally 'thinking thing'. I think it's a problematic concept, but I won't try to spell that out here. But suffice to say that Aristotelian metaphysics (and metaphysics originates from Aristotle's writing, although he did not devise the term, which was devised by a later editor) does not assume the body-mind division that Descartes does. Rather his was the duality of matter and form, a.k.a. hylomorphism, which is very different to Cartesian dualism, although that too would be a major digression.
But to return to Chalmers, I think to get a better idea of what he means, return to this key paragraph in his original Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness, to wit:
[quote=David Chalmers]The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.[/quote]
So, I don't think that is referring to a 'metaphysical substance' of the kind you appear to be envisaging, although that is an easy inference to draw if you think of it in Cartesian terms. The key point Chalmers is making is about the first person nature of conscious experience - that experience is something that occurs to, is felt by, a subject. And no third-person, objective description can ever embody that.
Quoting Malcolm Lett
'Chalmers characterizes his view as "naturalistic dualism": naturalistic because he believes mental states supervene "naturally" on physical systems (such as brains); dualist because he believes mental states are ontologically distinct from and not reducible to physical systems' (~wikipedia). But again, I don't believe this posits any kind of 'thinking substance' in a Cartesian sense. He writes about panpsychism, but I'm also aware he's discussed the 'combination problem' implicit in panpsychism, i.e. how can simple conscious units combine to create the unified subject that we experience as self.
Quoting Malcolm Lett
No, he does not. I still say you're misunderstanding the intent of his thought-experiment - or perhaps you're seeking to define it in such a way that it doesn't undermine the reductive materialism that you say you're proposing.
My interpretation of the issue is this. The fundamental puzzle of mind, is that it is never truly an object of cognition, in the way that physical objects are. Again, no metaphysical posit is required to prove that. Something nearer a perspectival shift is required: the reason the mind is not objectively graspable, is that it is the subject of experience, that to which or to whom experience occurs, that which cognises, sees and judges. But as Indian philosophy puts it, the eye can see another, but not itself; the hand can grasp another, but not itself. Again, no metaphysical posit required, but it does throw into relief the elusive nature of the subject and its intractibility to the objective sciences.
Oh I see! I had indeed missed the broader context. I'll try to pay closer attention to it in the future. Thanks for clarifying!
Granted, there will be arguments about what thinking is "correct" or "legitimate" when going about this. but such arguments are not limited to the study of the mind. As in all fields, different groups of people will go about it in different ways. Some will contribute more than others to the growth of knowledge.
There's a very good reason, which is that a considerable proportion of its activities are sub- and unconscious.
Yes, of course. But we can come to understand as much as we can. Newton didn't know how gravity came to be. Mendel didn't know what DNA is.
What a rotten lot of choices! B is closest to the truth I reckon, but we can know other minds by inference, and identities change constantly.
Well, I prefer (A) speculatively but (D) empirically; however, I find both (B) & (C) are incoherent (e.g. compositional fallacy & appeal to ignorance, respectively).
Does A equate with Metzinger's 'self-model theory of subjectivity'?
I think (A) refers more broadly to eliminativism (e.g. D. Dennett, P. Churchland, et al) than specifically to Metzinger's 'representational-functionalism'.
A and D are the only ones charitably characterised.
(Apologies for the delay in responding, I only just noticed the question from 15 days ago.)
Science construed as dealing solely with objective phenomena. But the grounds are rapidly shifting. I'm spending a lot of time nowadays perusing various Internet speilfests and panel discussions which are challenging the over-arching physicalist/objectivist paradigm that has dominated science until now. Phenomenology, analytical idealism, post-modernism and non-dualism (to mention a few) are challenging the physicalist paradigm and conception of the nature of science.
Who remembers the poster from the 2014 Tucscon Science of Consciousness conference?
'It was twenty years ago today'. And that was ten years ago!
Standing, left to right: Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert;
Bottom right: Fred Alan Wolf.
Hence the mainstreaming of the counter-culture in physics and philosophy of mind.
Zombies be damned :flower: