I have never understood why people think this is worth discussing. The “zombie” argument against physicalism is just bonkers—because it is not based on any actual evidence. Chalmers supporters need to show us the purported zombie with the purported identical atomic state and somehow show that it lacks qualia which the original has—and then we can have a meaningful discussion. Without such evidence—and in the absence of other evidence against physicalism—I don’t see much point in entertaining the possibility of such an outcome.
I have never understood why people think this is worth discussing
Firstly, because no-one can honestly claim that qualia are an easy concept to grasp. Secondly, because many philosophers hold a false belief about p-zombies. Thirdly (from my perspective) Eliezer took 6,600 words and still failed to refute Chalmers. If that isn’t good cause for writing about a subject, I don’t know what is.
The “zombie” argument against physicalism is just bonkers—because it is not based on any actual evidence
As I understand it, the zombie argument is about a thought experiment concerning a being that possesses complete physical knowledge of (a subset of) the Universe. As such, there is no reason to expect it to be based on empiricism. Thought experiments are a perfectly valid means of investigating certain philosophical problems.
A “thought experiment” is an experiment which you perform in your head (often because performing the actual experiment would be impractical). The problem with zombies is that a zombie is defined as being experimentally indistinguishable from the original. There simply isn’t an experiment that could distinguish between them.
Actually the experiment need make no mention of the existence of actual p-zombies. The argument is specifically about whether a mind that knows all physical details, knows everything about qualia—whether it can be sure that all beings that we postulate to possess qualia actually do possess qualia.
I’m not sure that is all there is to a thought experiment. Quantum Suicide is described as a thought experiment and suffers a somewhat similar problem.
While there presumably would be a branch in which the subject will find at least a positive result (they observe themselves surviving long past the odds say they should) that is a completely subjective result. From the outside view they just see the Born probabilities; we can’t expect any empirical difference in running this experiment but it is still a useful thought experiment because it challenges us to rigorously accept some of the less intuitive consequences of MWI.
Performing quantum suicide would—very briefly—allow you to learn whether you were still alive or about to die—which seems as though it might be some kind of result.
Searle’s “Chinese room” appears to me to be another dodgy non-experiment, that is still described as being a thought experiment—since Searle apparently doesn’t dispute that the room can actually speak Chinese. Maybe we need the concept of a fake thought experiment—to help distinguish between the science and the baloney.
Chalmers supporters need to show us the purported zombie
I disagree. The conversation could be sensibly had, philosophical conjectures like this are important and relevant for things such as designing artificial minds. It only seems like it was never worth discussing because the pro-mystical side hasn’t given up despite their project being logically incoherent. A working model would be proof of logical consistency but it’s too much to ask for.
I have never understood why people think this is worth discussing. The “zombie” argument against physicalism is just bonkers—because it is not based on any actual evidence. Chalmers supporters need to show us the purported zombie with the purported identical atomic state and somehow show that it lacks qualia which the original has—and then we can have a meaningful discussion. Without such evidence—and in the absence of other evidence against physicalism—I don’t see much point in entertaining the possibility of such an outcome.
Firstly, because no-one can honestly claim that qualia are an easy concept to grasp. Secondly, because many philosophers hold a false belief about p-zombies. Thirdly (from my perspective) Eliezer took 6,600 words and still failed to refute Chalmers. If that isn’t good cause for writing about a subject, I don’t know what is.
As I understand it, the zombie argument is about a thought experiment concerning a being that possesses complete physical knowledge of (a subset of) the Universe. As such, there is no reason to expect it to be based on empiricism. Thought experiments are a perfectly valid means of investigating certain philosophical problems.
A “thought experiment” is an experiment which you perform in your head (often because performing the actual experiment would be impractical). The problem with zombies is that a zombie is defined as being experimentally indistinguishable from the original. There simply isn’t an experiment that could distinguish between them.
I don’t know if this is just wordplay, but I like it.
Actually the experiment need make no mention of the existence of actual p-zombies. The argument is specifically about whether a mind that knows all physical details, knows everything about qualia—whether it can be sure that all beings that we postulate to possess qualia actually do possess qualia.
I’m not sure that is all there is to a thought experiment. Quantum Suicide is described as a thought experiment and suffers a somewhat similar problem.
While there presumably would be a branch in which the subject will find at least a positive result (they observe themselves surviving long past the odds say they should) that is a completely subjective result. From the outside view they just see the Born probabilities; we can’t expect any empirical difference in running this experiment but it is still a useful thought experiment because it challenges us to rigorously accept some of the less intuitive consequences of MWI.
Performing quantum suicide would—very briefly—allow you to learn whether you were still alive or about to die—which seems as though it might be some kind of result.
Searle’s “Chinese room” appears to me to be another dodgy non-experiment, that is still described as being a thought experiment—since Searle apparently doesn’t dispute that the room can actually speak Chinese. Maybe we need the concept of a fake thought experiment—to help distinguish between the science and the baloney.
Say “intuition pump” and describe reality with other symbols than a single metaphor.
I disagree. The conversation could be sensibly had, philosophical conjectures like this are important and relevant for things such as designing artificial minds. It only seems like it was never worth discussing because the pro-mystical side hasn’t given up despite their project being logically incoherent. A working model would be proof of logical consistency but it’s too much to ask for.