5 ms·
The big deal is that there's no observable difference between the world where your robot is conscious of itself and has subjective experience of its surrounding
by xyzzyz 9y ago
The big deal is that there's no observable difference between the world where your robot is conscious of itself and has subjective experience of its surroundings, and between the world where your robot merely behaves as such, speaks to you trying to convince you that it indeed has subjective experience, but in fact it has none, its experiences are just a movie screened in an empty cinema where nobody is watching.
This unobservable difference goes the most basic axiom of science -- if there's no observable difference, then there's no difference. Yet, somehow I have subjective experience. You might also have it, though there's currently no way you can convince me that you do.
- red75prime 9y agoWhy do you think those worlds are different in a meaningful sense? You can distinguish them in your imagination only. If you were the God, I would believe you.
- xyzzyz 9y agoThe meaningful sense is that I have subjective experience, yet I can imagine a world where there's no subjective experience of being me -- it is exactly the world _you_ are living in.
- dwaltrip 9y agoWhy is the philosophical zombie a useful thought experiment? What reason is there to believe such a thing could actually exist in our universe, any more than 2+2 could ever equal 5? To me, it seems immensely unlikely.