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What you've described is a p-zombie. Living without qualia would (if you buy that theory; there are various levels of rebuttal) look exactly the same from the o

What you've described is a p-zombie. Living without qualia would (if you buy that theory; there are various levels of rebuttal) look exactly the same from the outside. Behavior and decisions would be the same, and I'd pass any possible test that I'm a real person (at least with current neuroscience). But that only works for an outside observer. I can't be tricked into thinking I'm conscious, because it's recursive: who, then, is getting tricked? I know that I'm conscious because I'm the one experiencing things. You know that you're conscious for the same reason. Neither of us has a good way of being sure that the other one - or anyone else - is, at least not without some deeper philosophical reasoning.

lmm 6y ago
> But that only works for an outside observer. I can't be tricked into thinking I'm conscious, because it's recursive: who, then, is getting tricked? I know that I'm conscious because I'm the one experiencing things. You know that you're conscious for the same reason. Again, seriously, how can I tell? There are people who can't visualise things in their head, and largely don't realise there's anything strange about them. I can certainly introspect my thoughts, but I can talk about the results of that, so presumably a p-zombie is also able to do that. I don't think there's any part of my experience that doesn't affect my actions, so I don't think this notion of qualia is valid.