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I think the author is confusing two different issues: the problem of disproving solipsism and the problem of proving or disproving dualism. It is not true that

I think the author is confusing two different issues: the problem of disproving solipsism and the problem of proving or disproving dualism. It is not true that we must think of zombies as being absolutely identical to "real people" in order for them to be useful in thinking about dualism. They do not have to do exactly what real people do in a given situation. For example, a civilization of zombies might have speech, might even have philosophy, but would probably not talk about consciousness in any form. The author is right that you can't think of zombies as acting exactly the same as the corresponding human and yet not being conscious, because consciousness is surely a cause as well as an effect (else we wouldn't talk about it, for example). He's wrong that you need to think of them that way in order to bear fruit for dualism. I can postulate a universe in which my molecules and everyone else's have been precisely duplicated from this universe in physical terms. I can postulate that in that universe there is no such thing as conscious experience; no qualia or whatnot. I can imagine that universe continuing from the moment of duplication onward, proceeding as dictated by the laws of physics. My duplicate in that universe would probably not act exactly as I will, but will certainly act in some way. Simply the act of postulating, of conceiving, of that kind of zombie universe is enough to strongly suggest that consciousness is something outside of the physical. The zombie universe doesn't have to be identical in behavior, only identical physically. Because what you've now done is to recognize that a universe in which physical objects and laws are the only elements is a universe in which mental (experiential) phenomena are unaccounted for. You can imagine that those mental phenomena magically, mysteriously re-emerge from the physical, but have given absolutely no reason why they should. Therefore you can equally imagine that they don't re-emerge. So whether zombies behave identically with real people or are merely constituted identically with real people, their conceived existence is enough to show that the mental universe—so to speak—is conceptually detached from the physical and therefore a separate domain.

Marazan 10y ago
No the whole point is the zombies would talk of consciousness was even whilst by experiencing it. They are externally indistinguishable. Talking about consciousness is a physical action.
Retric 10y ago
Your getting confused, if behavior is unchanged then people would talk about the same things. It's uncomfortable for some people to realize a purely material world can give rise to objective experience, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests this is true.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > It's uncomfortable for some people to realize a purely material world can give rise to objective experience, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests this is true. You're committing the same mistake putzdown is, but in the opposite direction. There's only evidence if you assume that this is a purely material world. Or are you counting philosophical argument as "evidence"?
  - Retric 10y ago
    Suppose we are in a simulation. Now, it would be natural to assume experiments can only tell you about that simulation. Except, in the case of a self consistent simulation they could also tell you about a physical world that had the same rules as said simulation. So, in this case we have evidence of a possible world, even if that's not the world we live in. PS: Notice how this argument sidesteps the possibility of a 'fake' world as meaningless in this argument. So, even if say a trickster god was simply fooling you there is nothing no suggest that it's not also possible that a world running on similar rules could exist. Edit: Alternatively, if it was simply a fake simulation for example by improve actors, then if it was a good fake then it would act like a video recording. And as such the fake actors would still say the same words even with a different internal world.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      I'm not sure I understand the argument you're trying to make. One comment, though: A simulation isn't the only possible alternative to a purely materialistic universe. Consider for a moment the idea that God exists - that a non-material intelligence exists, and existed before the physical universe. Then there's something more than material that exists, but the material can still be real material - it doesn't have to be a simulation.
randallsquared 10y ago
> Simply the act of postulating, of conceiving, of that kind of zombie universe is enough to strongly suggest that consciousness is something outside of the physical. I don't think it is. You can conceive of a Penrose stair, but you can only believe it is physically possible if you don't understand it. We already know we don't really understand consciousness, yet, so I don't think you can draw conclusions from the possibility of imagining it to be one way or the other.
freshhawk 10y ago
> They do not have to do exactly what real people do in a given situation. But, by definition, they do have to do exactly what real people do. If they did not then there is no argument, everyone agrees this kind of zombie is very possible. The disagreement comes when Chalmers says they could exist and be indistinguishable (including asking about their inner experiences) from normal people. > I can postulate a universe in which my molecules and everyone else's have been precisely duplicated from this universe in physical terms. I can postulate that in that universe there is no such thing as conscious experience; no qualia or whatnot. This is actually quite a concise definition of the dualist position, the material argument is basically that being identical physically is to have identical qualia.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> Simply the act of postulating, of conceiving, of that kind of zombie universe is enough to strongly suggest that consciousness is something outside of the physical. By the act of postulating that kind of universe, you have defined consciousness to be something outside the physical.
Almaviva 10y ago
Rationally I feel like we have to accept a Daniel Dennett view: with what we know about the brain, all human behaviour is consistent with the laws of physics, and changing the brain very much changes "what it's like" to be - it doesn't take very many experiences with drugs, even alcohol, to realize this. Consciousness, then, has no explanatory power whatsoever. A lot of people argue at this point, but they have nothing substantial to stand on. Maybe they just want to believe that Free Will is something special. However, I think the Hard Problem is a knot that can never go away. I notice physicists are willing to explain much of the properties of the universe (like time having a direction) just by saying there was a very specific initial condition, a very low entropy state that (by definition) is extraordinarily unlikely. So what about saying there's another constraint on conditions of the universe, where we have physical laws that create consciousness. Is this just an anthropic principle of some sort? I was listening to Sean Carroll's "The Big Picture" audiobook. He argues that I can't really be sure I'm not a p-zombie. But I think I can: I'm with Descartes on this one - it's the one thing I actually _can_ be sure of. I'm sure I have an inner experience (that explains nothing scientifically to anyone else) but I can easily imagine not having it, with no change to the laws of physics. Does anyone know of a good read that isn't full of jargon that fleshes out these ideas some more?
- mcguire 10y ago
  Did Dennett back off from his intentional stance? Consciousness seems important to explain and predict behavior in practice.
  - Almaviva 10y ago
    I wasn't clear, it's vitally important to predict behaviour in practice at a poetic naturalism level, but there seems to be no reason to adopt strong emergence: consciousness doesn't introduce any new explanatory power that couldn't, in principle, be explained by physics, or even chemistry, biology and so forth. See Dennett's interview with Bob Wright starting at about 30 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0aCWpNzSM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0aCWpNzSM I'm just not ready to stop there, despite this all being true, I think it seems not parsimonious to believe there is nothing fundamentally mysterious about how I feel like something subjectively.

Marazan 10y ago

No the whole point is the zombies would talk of consciousness was even whilst by experiencing it. They are externally indistinguishable. Talking about consciousness is a physical action.

Retric 10y ago

Your getting confused, if behavior is unchanged then people would talk about the same things. It's uncomfortable for some people to realize a purely material world can give rise to objective experience, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests this is true.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> It's uncomfortable for some people to realize a purely material world can give rise to objective experience, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests this is true. You're committing the same mistake putzdown is, but in the opposite direction. There's only evidence if you assume that this is a purely material world. Or are you counting philosophical argument as "evidence"?
- Retric 10y ago
  Suppose we are in a simulation. Now, it would be natural to assume experiments can only tell you about that simulation. Except, in the case of a self consistent simulation they could also tell you about a physical world that had the same rules as said simulation. So, in this case we have evidence of a possible world, even if that's not the world we live in. PS: Notice how this argument sidesteps the possibility of a 'fake' world as meaningless in this argument. So, even if say a trickster god was simply fooling you there is nothing no suggest that it's not also possible that a world running on similar rules could exist. Edit: Alternatively, if it was simply a fake simulation for example by improve actors, then if it was a good fake then it would act like a video recording. And as such the fake actors would still say the same words even with a different internal world.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I'm not sure I understand the argument you're trying to make. One comment, though: A simulation isn't the only possible alternative to a purely materialistic universe. Consider for a moment the idea that God exists - that a non-material intelligence exists, and existed before the physical universe. Then there's something more than material that exists, but the material can still be real material - it doesn't have to be a simulation.

randallsquared 10y ago

> Simply the act of postulating, of conceiving, of that kind of zombie universe is enough to strongly suggest that consciousness is something outside of the physical. I don't think it is. You can conceive of a Penrose stair, but you can only believe it is physically possible if you don't understand it. We already know we don't really understand consciousness, yet, so I don't think you can draw conclusions from the possibility of imagining it to be one way or the other.

freshhawk 10y ago

> They do not have to do exactly what real people do in a given situation. But, by definition, they do have to do exactly what real people do. If they did not then there is no argument, everyone agrees this kind of zombie is very possible. The disagreement comes when Chalmers says they could exist and be indistinguishable (including asking about their inner experiences) from normal people. > I can postulate a universe in which my molecules and everyone else's have been precisely duplicated from this universe in physical terms. I can postulate that in that universe there is no such thing as conscious experience; no qualia or whatnot. This is actually quite a concise definition of the dualist position, the material argument is basically that being identical physically is to have identical qualia.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

> Simply the act of postulating, of conceiving, of that kind of zombie universe is enough to strongly suggest that consciousness is something outside of the physical. By the act of postulating that kind of universe, you have defined consciousness to be something outside the physical.

Almaviva 10y ago

Rationally I feel like we have to accept a Daniel Dennett view: with what we know about the brain, all human behaviour is consistent with the laws of physics, and changing the brain very much changes "what it's like" to be - it doesn't take very many experiences with drugs, even alcohol, to realize this. Consciousness, then, has no explanatory power whatsoever. A lot of people argue at this point, but they have nothing substantial to stand on. Maybe they just want to believe that Free Will is something special. However, I think the Hard Problem is a knot that can never go away. I notice physicists are willing to explain much of the properties of the universe (like time having a direction) just by saying there was a very specific initial condition, a very low entropy state that (by definition) is extraordinarily unlikely. So what about saying there's another constraint on conditions of the universe, where we have physical laws that create consciousness. Is this just an anthropic principle of some sort? I was listening to Sean Carroll's "The Big Picture" audiobook. He argues that I can't really be sure I'm not a p-zombie. But I think I can: I'm with Descartes on this one - it's the one thing I actually _can_ be sure of. I'm sure I have an inner experience (that explains nothing scientifically to anyone else) but I can easily imagine not having it, with no change to the laws of physics. Does anyone know of a good read that isn't full of jargon that fleshes out these ideas some more?

mcguire 10y ago
Did Dennett back off from his intentional stance? Consciousness seems important to explain and predict behavior in practice.
- Almaviva 10y ago
  I wasn't clear, it's vitally important to predict behaviour in practice at a poetic naturalism level, but there seems to be no reason to adopt strong emergence: consciousness doesn't introduce any new explanatory power that couldn't, in principle, be explained by physics, or even chemistry, biology and so forth. See Dennett's interview with Bob Wright starting at about 30 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0aCWpNzSM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0aCWpNzSM I'm just not ready to stop there, despite this all being true, I think it seems not parsimonious to believe there is nothing fundamentally mysterious about how I feel like something subjectively.