4 ms·

I'm forced to conclude that some people actually are p-zombies. In 100% of discussions of consciousness, you have a few people pleading for a discussion of subj

I'm forced to conclude that some people actually are p-zombies. In 100% of discussions of consciousness, you have a few people pleading for a discussion of subjective experience / awareness, a lot more people acting as if they can't possibly conceive of what you mean by that, and exactly 0 people proposing even a hint in the direction of explaining it.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
Scientific reasoning can only apply to something once we can ask counterfactual questions and make counterfactual guesses ("What happens in situation X? How about Y?") about the something. Unfortunately, the kinds of people who talk about a "Hard Problem of Consciousness" do not even respect causal reasoning, and at least half of them are outright mysterians, so almost nobody has bothered to come up with "What happens if...?" questions regarding qualia for scientists to even begin investigating. As such, most scientifically-trained individuals will simply refuse to treat "qualia" as a real concept. And they've got a point! Something with little to no causal role (remember, epiphenomenalism of the kind necessary for "p-zombies" to be possible requires that consciousness has zero causal role whatsoever), something that can be "observed" in only one way and which is not even fully observable in that way (because no counterfactuals can be had)? Yes, to a well-trained mind that sounds like nonsense.
- jnicholasp 10y ago
  The idea of subjective experience or qualia can only seem like nonsense if you don't experience it - if you're a p-zombie. If you do experience qualia, if there is "something that it's like" to be you, then the scientific response to that persistent, inexplicable experience, despite not having any sensible or useful way to explain or even question it, is very definitely not to attempt to dismiss it. It is not scientific to deny things that exist merely because they don't fit with the accepted scheme of things, or merely because we don't currently know how to gain further insight into them.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >The idea of subjective experience or qualia can only seem like nonsense if you don't experience it - if you're a p-zombie. The idea that qualia are some non-physical, non-functional soul-stuff seems like nonsense to basically everyone who isn't a trained philosopher of mind, and half the people who are. P-zombies are worse, because they seem to assume epiphenomenalism, at which point you've turned "consciousness" into something that doesn't even play a causal role. >If you do experience qualia, if there is "something that it's like" to be you Yes, I've noted that you can take one word and replace it with its definitions or synonyms. That does nothing to explain what the word points to in specific, of course, so you still have the problem that the things I refer to as experiences, as what it's like to be me, could be sufficiently different in nature from what you personally call qualia as to not even be the same thing. We need common examples or points of comparison in order to have a clear, precise intersubjective definition of the word. Like, if you keep talking about your "fruit", and I keep talking about my "fruit", and you mean your car but I mean my office chair, we have a severe problem with our discourse -- even if we both supposedly agree that "fruit" plainly exists.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

Scientific reasoning can only apply to something once we can ask counterfactual questions and make counterfactual guesses ("What happens in situation X? How about Y?") about the something. Unfortunately, the kinds of people who talk about a "Hard Problem of Consciousness" do not even respect causal reasoning, and at least half of them are outright mysterians, so almost nobody has bothered to come up with "What happens if...?" questions regarding qualia for scientists to even begin investigating. As such, most scientifically-trained individuals will simply refuse to treat "qualia" as a real concept. And they've got a point! Something with little to no causal role (remember, epiphenomenalism of the kind necessary for "p-zombies" to be possible requires that consciousness has zero causal role whatsoever), something that can be "observed" in only one way and which is not even fully observable in that way (because no counterfactuals can be had)? Yes, to a well-trained mind that sounds like nonsense.

jnicholasp 10y ago
The idea of subjective experience or qualia can only seem like nonsense if you don't experience it - if you're a p-zombie. If you do experience qualia, if there is "something that it's like" to be you, then the scientific response to that persistent, inexplicable experience, despite not having any sensible or useful way to explain or even question it, is very definitely not to attempt to dismiss it. It is not scientific to deny things that exist merely because they don't fit with the accepted scheme of things, or merely because we don't currently know how to gain further insight into them.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >The idea of subjective experience or qualia can only seem like nonsense if you don't experience it - if you're a p-zombie. The idea that qualia are some non-physical, non-functional soul-stuff seems like nonsense to basically everyone who isn't a trained philosopher of mind, and half the people who are. P-zombies are worse, because they seem to assume epiphenomenalism, at which point you've turned "consciousness" into something that doesn't even play a causal role. >If you do experience qualia, if there is "something that it's like" to be you Yes, I've noted that you can take one word and replace it with its definitions or synonyms. That does nothing to explain what the word points to in specific, of course, so you still have the problem that the things I refer to as experiences, as what it's like to be me, could be sufficiently different in nature from what you personally call qualia as to not even be the same thing. We need common examples or points of comparison in order to have a clear, precise intersubjective definition of the word. Like, if you keep talking about your "fruit", and I keep talking about my "fruit", and you mean your car but I mean my office chair, we have a severe problem with our discourse -- even if we both supposedly agree that "fruit" plainly exists.