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Imagine a world that has always been populated entirely by p-zombies. By definition, that world should be indistinguishable from this world, so how on earth did
by gloob 17y ago
Imagine a world that has always been populated entirely by p-zombies. By definition, that world should be indistinguishable from this world, so how on earth did they get started talking about consciousness and qualia?
The answer to the question "how did they get started talking about qualia" is: by definition, the hypothetical Z-world is indistinguishable from ours. In our world, people talk about qualia. Therefore, in the Z-world, zombies talk about qualia. What's more, the beginning of "zombies talking about qualia" would be the same as the beginning of "people talking about qualia".
I have a feeling I'm misunderstanding you.
In your example of the "ouch" printing program, someone had to have pain and say "ouch" before such a program was made.
Why? What if the program is the output of a random number generator? Does that mean the random number generator experiences pain?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- orangecat 17y agoThe answer to the question "how did they get started talking about qualia" is: by definition, the hypothetical Z-world is indistinguishable from ours. In our world, people talk about qualia. Therefore, in the Z-world, zombies talk about qualia. Right. Which implies that the reason that we talk about qualia is not that we have them (otherwise zombies wouldn't), but for some completely different reason that just happens to exactly line up with the qualia that we in fact do have. That would be an astounding coincidence and is a major strike against the theory per Occam's Razor.