Well, for instance in the account of property dualism I’ve sketched above, there’s several possibilities: one, the processing might occur on the nonphysical, i.e. mental, properties; two, the processing might occur on the physical properties, with the mental properties just ‘going along for the ride’ (this would explain why they correlate precisely with the physical substrate and thus, seems to be the most parsimonious option); and three, what happens might not be appropriately described by the metaphor of ‘processing’—as I’ve pointed out in the previous thread, not everything can be reduced to processing, all the processing in the world doesn’t produce an electromagnetic field, for instance, and nonalgorithmic processes also aren’t captured at least by the usual notion of processing; or, of course, there might be some combination of those occurring.
All three options open up the possibility of physical zombies, and options two and three also provide the option of an ‘informationalist’ or computationalist zombie, i.e. a being whose physical substrate and information processing is identical to a conscious entity, but which lacks consciousness entirely.
Of course, there are also entirely different possibilities, given by other approaches to the mind/body problem.
I see it as a burden-of-proof issue. If there are properties of matter other than physical, then someone needs to demonstrate them.
I’m mighty sorry to hear this; I found it to be a valuable way of looking at – well, behavior! What else do we really have to work with? That’s the whole thing with consciousness debates: no one can ever know another person’s consciousness. But another person’s behavior? Right out there for all to observe.
Agreed! I often say the same thing: in the universe, there are matter and energy, and the information contained in their arrangement. Information is very closely tied to energy – there are some wonderful laws regarding how signals are transmitted and information is recorded, with temperature as a key factor. Informationalism isn’t really threatening to physicalism.
Agreed again! In fact, I honestly believe that there are variations in consciousness between people – just as we, ourselves, experience variations in our consciousness from moment to moment. We are differently conscious when reading a book than when skiing. It isn’t all that much of a stretch to imagine someone who is simply unable to attain some specific states of consciousness.
Well, the zombie argument, if it is successful, demonstrates that physical properties alone don’t suffice to explain our observations, thus shifting the burden of proof towards a demonstration that against appearances, physical properties suffice. The existence of properties other than the physical is a hypothesis proposed in regard of this apparent failure of physicalism. To hold fast to physicalism, one first would have to answer these problems.
Yes, it’s true that there is no good argument that, say, property dualism is true. And there are certainly other alternatives in the running. But it’s a consistent option that can reconcile the zombie argument (and similar ones) with a desire for an explicable world; it’s hard to see how physicalism on its own can meet this challenge. At the very least, one would have to mount a successful defense against the possibility of zombies that does not boil down to the mere assumption of physicalism in itself.
If it is successful? As pointed before, thought history every mystery turned to be not magic. BTW to get to that “successful” part one should not shift the burden of proof because that is admitting that there is indeed no good evidence. There is a need for more evidence to begin to assume that the default of not requiring mysterious explanations to explain strange phenomena should be adopted.
Yes, that’s why nobody’s advocating magic. As pointed out before.
There’s a wealth of evidence for the existence of mental properties, of course—our mental experience. The zombie argument’s conclusion is that those can’t be reduced to physical properties; the onus is thus on the physicalist to show how the reduction could be done anyway, by either providing an explicit way to construct mentality (i.e. solving the hard problem), or at least debunking the zombie argument.
And once more, nobody’s pointing to anything mysterious as explanation, and your continued strawmanning alleging anybody does only serves to weaken your position.
I’m just saying, I checked the history of the term and I’m the one advising that the elephant in the room is still there even if you are not mentioning it. If this should remain hypothetical than there should be no problem, but it is clear that the mystic and religious ones that will decide in the future to not give any rights to artificial entities will grasp to concepts like this one as justification for it.
IF, as the point I made was missed, is that there is no evidence that this is so.
Here is where I think the problem is, you can not use a hypothetical as the evidence itself. One needs first evidence that the hard problem can be solved alone with the zombie argument.
Again, the only argument against the point I made (and me affirming that indeed you are not making the argument does not deny why and the origins for this argument came forth) is to deny that this argument is a big bone tossed to the mysticis and the ones that go for religious explanations.
There would be no problem whatsoever in keeping this in the hypothetical realm, but (I’m only saying) there are many mysticists and faithful out there that will make cathedrals out of the bones tossed at them, and then they will vote to deny any rights to any future entities thanks to a hypothetical like that. They will make reasons that they will use to forever consider them zombies. . Like trinopus said if there are properties of matter other than physical, then someone needs to demonstrate them first so as to then making this more than just a nice thing to chew about, but to not swallow in the real world.
There would be no problem with keeping physicalism in the hypothetical realm, but there are people out there that will use physicalism as a reason that it’s ok to eat humans if there is no soul.
That is missing the point, it is not really physicalism why I think in this case one should not ignore what history has shown many, many times with physiological ponderings like this one; the default position nowadays is the one that relies less on the assumption that there is something mysterious to this.
“We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes.” - Isaac Newton.
An argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.
And there are indeed secular rules and laws against eating humans. There is no need to assume or to get to deal with souls.
Crud, darn dictionary that does not look at context.
I meant to say that that is missing the point, it is not really physicalism why I think that in this case one should not ignore what history has shown many, many times with philosophical ponderings like the p-zomby; the default position nowadays is the one that relies on the assumption that there is nothing mysterious to this.
Well, first of all, I’m not really clear that your history is any better than your ‘consensus’ or the ‘re-emergence’ of the zombie argument; to my knowledge, the zombie argument has never been used to argue either for any form of substance dualism, or against giving personality rights to artificial intelligences. Not to mention, doing so would be fallacious: while the zombie argument, if it is sound, shows that the physical properties don’t suffice for consciousness, it does not tell us what, then, is necessary for a being to be conscious; so we are in the same position towards artificial beings as we are towards other humans, with or without believing in zombies. There’s no argument that artificial entities lack whatever produces experience.
Additionally, the concern you raise, if it were valid, would be all the more grounds to discuss things like the zombie argument, in order to perhaps eventually find a theory of what really produces consciousness; just attempting to sweep dissent under the rug and try to maintain a facade of physicalism lest any hypothetical zealots deny hypothetical artificial entities their hypothetical right seems not to be the best strategy. Rather, one should try to get clear about what actually is in question, what really is necessary for consciousness, which we won’t be able to do without discussion.
And all else aside, history or purported future still don’t have any impact on the soundness of an argument; that, only logical analysis can settle, which you however seem loath to engage in, trying instead to divert the discussion by appeals to authority or consequences.
Again a sentence I can’t parse. There’s a bold-faced all-caps IF, but no conditional.
The zombie argument does not propose to solve the hard problem; rather, it purports to show that solving it can’t be done by appealing to physical properties alone.
And I’m not ‘using the hypothetical as evidence’. The evidence for there being mental properties is the reality of our mental experience, which has properties, such as subjectivity, quality, intrinsicness, ineffability (you can’t tell a blind man what it’s like to be able to see), and so on. So there is ample evidence for the existence of mental properties. The zombie argument concerns the question of whether those properties are reducible to physical properties, and answers it in the negative. Thus, we have evidence for there being mental properties that are not reducible to physical properties (if nobody can debunk the zombie argument and others like it).
It’s not a bone tossed to anybody. It’s a logical issue that arises in the philosophy of mind, and it’s wholly independent of our considerations of what sort of explanations should be favoured. If we favour physicalism, then we’re obliged to answer the argument convincingly; if we don’t, then we have to find a rational, consistent framework to extent our ontology.
And besides, the big issue that you seem to keep missing is: even if it were used in the sense you fear by the religious (again, something I’ve never seen, and which in fact it would be fallacious to do as I pointed out above), that does not make it wrong. In fact, it’s wholly silent on the issue of whether the argument is sound. Your attempts to drag this discussion to some meta-level, discussing whether we should be discussing this, just highlight your lack of actual arguments.
And I mean, what do you propose to do? Let’s say that this argument does, as you claim, furnish some support for religious/mystical/whatever viewpoints, which you think is a bad thing. So what do you think is the right approach to it? Sweep it under the rug, whistle innocently, and hope nobody notices? Pretend there’s no problem at all?
It seems to me the only way to truly get rid of a riddle is to solve it, which is, of course, what the whole discussion aims at.
And that’s what the zombie argument does. Or rather, if you accept the argument, then going the route of property dualism is one valid way of dealing with it; there are others that have been worked out. If you wish to reject the argument, then you need to show what’s wrong with it (which is not done by saying there are ‘many mysticists and faithful out there’ who allegedly would use this argument for nefarious purposes). The one thing you can’t consistently do is continue to believe in physicalism without addressing the argument.
Well, once more, nobody’s saying that there is something mysterious. What the argument does is highlight that there is a problem with the default position, which either needs to be fixed to uphold it, or which forces us to reevaluate our position.
The primary thing wrong with it is that such entities do not exist. As soon as someone actually produces two identical entities which, nevertheless, are not identical, we’ll have something to examine scientifically. At the moment, the closest we have to “identical” entities are fundamental particles and their most immediate combinations, molecules. But…so far…such identical entities have identical properties.
(The idea that water retains a “memory” of the chemicals that have been dissolved in it would have been an interesting challenge, but it seems to have been discredited.)
(I’m not going to go quite so far as to reject it on tautological grounds, but, seriously, if the word “identical” doesn’t mean “identical,” then it seems an odd word to hang a premise upon.)
But the argument does not turn on existence of zombies, but on their possibility: if p-zombies are logically possible, physicalism is false. This follows by modus tollens: if physicalism is true, then zombies are impossible. But zombies are possible (by the zombie argument). Hence, physicalism is false.
You can’t argue against possibility by invoking nonexistence: simply because something is not actual, does not mean it’s not possible. And of course, we’ll never create an actual physical zombie—complete physical identity simply can’t be achieved for anything macroscopic. But to use this incidental fact against the zombie argument is to miss its thrust: even in a world in which no zombies ever come into existence, as long as they’re logically possible, physicalism is refuted.
Well, I’ve always used ‘physically identical’ for exactly that reason. ‘Physically identical’ only means identical simpliciter if you presuppose physicalism, that is, that all properties are physical. But doing so is question-begging.
I’ve sketched you a picture of a world in which physicalism is false, zombies are possible, and physically identical beings can nevertheless be different. This shows that such a possibility is at least coherent, and, unlike physicalism, able to rationally deal with the zombie argument (if it can’t be refuted). So, we could, in fact, live in this world; but insisting, like you do, that we should only investigate the possibility upon meeting impossible requirements (the creation of actual zombies) would mean that we would never discover that.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? If they are logically possible. We have no reason to believe that they are, and given the fact that we have absolutely no reliable epistemology for non-physical objects, no way of finding a reason. Why should we assume that they are possible, then? You are positing a real phenomenon for which you have no evidence. I reject the notion that they are possible. What could you possibly offer me to shoulder your burden of proof? Why would you believe in them given that you cannot even in theory provide any evidence for the possibility of their existence?
The problem here, is that to believe that philosophical zombies are possible, you need to assume that physicalism is false. We have no way of demonstrating that zombies are possible. I believe (on other grounds) in substance dualism, so of course I believe that zombies are possible, but that’s a conclusion from dualism, not an argument for dualism.
Sure, but the evidence is nonexistent. It’s like a bad theologian saying, “Since you can’t prove God doesn’t exist, then you have to concede that he might.” Maybe so, but there is no evidence for God, and so the same problem is involved.
So, okay, sure, maybe a p-zombie can exist. Solipsism can also never be rejected, either, or any of the other varieties of Cartesian doubt. Maybe Conan Doyle was right and there are fairies at the bottom of the garden. Maybe the IPU and FSM are locked in a deadly contest for which will claim our souls.
I can presume the existence of just about anything, but I would never be so arrant as to base a logical argument upon such a possibility.
The zombie argument gives one: their conceivability. What can be coherently conceived of is possible; you can try to resist this, but then you get into hot water trying to explain how you judge anything possible.
No. I’ve outlined the assumptions of the zombie argument above in response to RaftPeople. The falsity of physicalism is the conclusion, and the argument is not circular.
No. It would be like a theologian saying, ‘here’s an argument for God’s existence; it’s logically valid, so, if its premises are true, it compels you to accept its conclusion’. To attempt to counter it with the absence of evidence for the existence of God is mistaken: we’ve reasoned from available knowledge, and, if we have made no mistake, the conclusion is strictly true if the premises are.
This ‘argument from conceivability’ seemsn capable of proving almost anything. Take the ‘zoombie’ concept. A ‘zoombie’, as imagined by Richard Brown, is an entity that is identical to a human being on the non-physical plane, but differs from the original on the physical plane; if the zoombie is not, in fact ‘conscious’, then this ‘proves’ that consciousness is caused by physical attributes rather than non-physical ones.
In fact it does no such thing; but it does prove that the argument from conceivability is self-defeating.
What? I’m sorry, I can conceive of faster-than-light travel. That doesn’t make it possible. Or maybe I can’t, because what I’m envisioning is simply portrayals of FTL that are incoherent with reality. But if that’s the case, I cannot reasonably be said to be able to conceive of a p-zombie. I mean, I can grasp the general concept, but I cannot conceive of it any more than I can conceive of any number of impossible things, like a box containing the amazon river, or golden iron - things which are fundamentally impossible. I can imagine the p-zombie the same way as I can imagine golden iron. I have a concept in my head, but I have no way of determining whether that actually is a p-zombie. Can I imagine an entity exactly like me, except that it is not conscious? I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if that’s conceivable.
All in all, though, I reject outright the concept that we cannot conceive of impossible things. We either do it all the time, or you’re playing fast and loose with the definition of “conceive”. I can imagine what the concept of Iron Gold might look like. That doesn’t make the concept any less incoherent and impossible; it just means that my conception is not Iron Gold, but rather something else entirely. Similarly, you can “conceive” of a p-zombie, but this hardly proves that it’s logically possible - your conception may be flawed, it may be of something completely different, or it may be that we can conceive of logical impossibilities. Also, what eburacum45 said.
No. For instance, things like ‘a square circle’ can’t be conceived of, on account of being contradictory. That conceivability implies possibility takes its origin from exactly this observation: if we can’t conceive of what is contradictory, then what we can conceive of does not include a contradiction, and is therefore possible. In this sense, conceivability is our best guide to possibility.
But if the properties on the non-physical plane are precisely the conscious experiences, then to conceive of a being identical to me on that plane is to conceive of a being whose conscious experience is identical to mine; in other words, I can’t conceive of a being identical to me in all non-physical aspects that does not share my conscious experience, since to be identical to me in this way is to be identical in conscious experience. But then, a ‘zoombie’ is inconsistent, as a being that both is and isn’t identical to me in its non-physical properties.
tossed at them, and then they will vote to deny any rights to any future entities thanks to a hypothetical like that. They will make reasons that they will use to forever consider them zombies. . Like trinopus said if there are properties of matter other than physical, then someone needs to demonstrate them first so as to then making this more than just a nice thing to chew about, but to not swallow in the real world.