Could you clarify what it means for “the zombie argument” to be correct/incorrect? The version I have in mind (and agree with) is, roughly, ‘p-zombies are conceivable; therefore, we can’t know a priori that facts about the physical world entail, or are identical to, facts about conscious experience’. I would then add that we have insufficient evidence to be empirically certain of that entailment or identity [edit: but it would be very weird if the entailment didn’t hold, and I have no particular reason to believe that it doesn’t.] When you say the zombie argument isn’t correct, are you disagreeing with me on conceivability, or the ‘therefore’, or the empirical part—or do you have a different argument in mind?
On standard physicalism zombies would be conceivable because physics only captures the functional/relational properties between things, but this misses the intrinsic properties underlying these relations which are phenomenal.
On Russelian Monism, zombies are not conceivable because if you duplicate the physics you’re also duplicating the intrinsic, categorical properties and these are phenomenal (or necessarily give rise to phenomena.)
I could also imagine other flavours of Monism (which might be better labelled as property dualism?) for which the intrinsic categorical properties are contingent rather than necessary. On this view, zombies would also be conceivable.
I would tentatively lean towards regular Russellian Monism (I.e. zombies are inconceivable which is what I crudely meant by saying the zombie argument isn’t correct.)
On standard physicalism zombies would be conceivable
On standard (non eliminative) physicalism, zombies cannot be conceived without contradiction , because physicalism holds that consciousness is entirely physical, and a physical duplicate is a duplicate simpliciter. So the inconceivability of zombies is not a USP of RM.
The bite of the zombie argument is that zombies are conceivable given physics … physics does not predict phenomenal properties, so absence of phenomenal properties does not lead to contradiction.
I could also imagine other flavours of Monism (which might be better labelled as property dualism?) for which the intrinsic categorical properties are contingent rather than necessary
Phenomenal “properties” are more necessary under DAT than RM, because they are not even separate properties, but arise from the subjective perspective on the underlying reality.
On standard (non eliminative) physicalism, zombies cannot be conceived without contradiction , because physicalism holds that consciousness is entirely physical, and a physical duplicate is a duplicate simpliciter.
This isn’t correct. The standard non-eliminative (type B) physicalist stance is to grant that zombies are conceivable a priori but deny the move to metaphysical possibility a posteriori. They’d say that physical brain states are identical to phenomena but we only find this a posteriori (analogous to water = H20 or heat = molecular motion.) You might find this view unsatisfying (as I do) but there are plenty of philosophers who take the line (Loar, Papineau, Tye etc..) and it’s not contradictory.
The physicalist move to deny zombie conceivability is eliminativist (type A) and is taken by e.g. Dennett, Dretske, Lewis etc..
Could you clarify what it means for “the zombie argument” to be correct/incorrect? The version I have in mind (and agree with) is, roughly, ‘p-zombies are conceivable; therefore, we can’t know a priori that facts about the physical world entail, or are identical to, facts about conscious experience’. I would then add that we have insufficient evidence to be empirically certain of that entailment or identity [edit: but it would be very weird if the entailment didn’t hold, and I have no particular reason to believe that it doesn’t.] When you say the zombie argument isn’t correct, are you disagreeing with me on conceivability, or the ‘therefore’, or the empirical part—or do you have a different argument in mind?
On standard physicalism zombies would be conceivable because physics only captures the functional/relational properties between things, but this misses the intrinsic properties underlying these relations which are phenomenal.
On Russelian Monism, zombies are not conceivable because if you duplicate the physics you’re also duplicating the intrinsic, categorical properties and these are phenomenal (or necessarily give rise to phenomena.)
I could also imagine other flavours of Monism (which might be better labelled as property dualism?) for which the intrinsic categorical properties are contingent rather than necessary. On this view, zombies would also be conceivable.
I would tentatively lean towards regular Russellian Monism (I.e. zombies are inconceivable which is what I crudely meant by saying the zombie argument isn’t correct.)
On standard (non eliminative) physicalism, zombies cannot be conceived without contradiction , because physicalism holds that consciousness is entirely physical, and a physical duplicate is a duplicate simpliciter. So the inconceivability of zombies is not a USP of RM.
The bite of the zombie argument is that zombies are conceivable given physics … physics does not predict phenomenal properties, so absence of phenomenal properties does not lead to contradiction.
Phenomenal “properties” are more necessary under DAT than RM, because they are not even separate properties, but arise from the subjective perspective on the underlying reality.
This isn’t correct. The standard non-eliminative (type B) physicalist stance is to grant that zombies are conceivable a priori but deny the move to metaphysical possibility a posteriori. They’d say that physical brain states are identical to phenomena but we only find this a posteriori (analogous to water = H20 or heat = molecular motion.) You might find this view unsatisfying (as I do) but there are plenty of philosophers who take the line (Loar, Papineau, Tye etc..) and it’s not contradictory.
The physicalist move to deny zombie conceivability is eliminativist (type A) and is taken by e.g. Dennett, Dretske, Lewis etc..