To be far useful does not mean inaccurate

Sure doesn't, but we do observe a relationship between the two in organisms (and machines) that depend upon the utility of their perceptions for survival or function. More accurate perceptions are..very often, the more useful ones. I'm sure we can find the reverse to be true in some scenario, for some species, ofc. Probably even somewhere in ourselves. If the effect of an accurate perception might be crippling...then the utility of self deception immediately presents itself.

True if our perceptions were always accurate we never would have invented science or philosophy augment them . As what would a perfect mind do with such a thing . Thou i will  also point out that deception in would be hard because the deception would need to be multi situational . This is why idea's like Alvin Plantinga EAAN will always fail .

I may actually have BEEN a philosophical zombie. I recently did a gastroscopy, wherein they put a giant fucking scope down your throat. I was told something very creepy: during the procedure, you can respond to commands and even verbalize answers. But when you wake up, you have a "black out" effect. Sure enough, when I woke up, I had a "dream" of something going in and out of my mouth about 4 times but really fast-- like over the course of about 2 seconds.

So "my" experience and "my brain's" experience may or may not be identical. It's quite spooky to think of, actually.

I think it's actually possible that some brain damaged people COULD function fully in this somnambulistic state, and not actually be awake and aware. It may be that people in a blackout state are offline and on autopilot, perhaps for extended periods of time.

(March 5, 2018 at 11:52 am)Khemikal Wrote: If they have meaningfully different brains then we would likely refer to that meaningful difference as a possible explanation between the two.  If whatever meaningful difference they have produces no discernible effect..such as we cannot otherwise tell between the two which is the control and who is the outlier....then we might suppose that specific disparity between us is functionally inconsequential to consciousness in the first place. 

I think the problem with that view is that it ignores the possibility that the difference is very much to do with the difference in consciousness... and despite the fact you can tell that the difference is the explanation for the difference in consciousness.... the vital point is [i]you still don't know [u]which one is conscious or why that one and not the other. And is that not a possible hard problem?

Quote:Not really, because a p-zombie is explicitly proposed to be identical in every physical regard for a very specific reason.  It's meant as a possible demonstration of the weakness of a functional definition of consciousness derived from physical systems.  The reason that the p-zombie has the same brain we do is to -remove- any possibility that a neurological or mechanical difference could distinguish something between the two, or in fact b the reason that one was functionally different from the other even if it could evade a test.  The whole point of the proposition or the hypothetical zombie is to communicate that position.  


What you're talking about is two people who have a physical difference, being somehow different..despite seeming the same.   Well, sure, we're aware of people we might call high functioning in the sets of the impaired or damaged.  They routinely cause us to rethink what is required for a range of mental operation that could pass as average or unremarkable among their unimpaired and un-damaged peers.  It may be that a person could go full on, or at least very nearly full on bio-automaton.  It may even be that we are full on bio-automata that has fundamentally underestimated the capabilities of automatons...ourselves.

Okay so you wouldn't consider such a person a P-Zed because P-Zeds are specifically postulated in an attempt to argue against physicalism. Is that a fair summary of what you just said, for you?

And still, what would you call a person who isn't a P-Zed but has no consciousness and yet behaves exactly the same as we do, despite having a different brain, but not different enough for us to not wrongly dismiss it as normal brain variation?

(March 5, 2018 at 11:52 am)Khemikal Wrote: What you're talking about is two people who have a physical difference, being somehow different..despite seeming the same.   Well, sure, we're aware of people we might call high functioning in the sets of the impaired or damaged.  They routinely cause us to rethink what is required for a range of mental operation that could pass as average or unremarkable among their unimpaired and un-damaged peers.  It may be that a person could go full on, or at least very nearly full on bio-automaton.  It may even be that we are full on bio-automata that has fundamentally underestimated the capabilities of automatons...ourselves.

And the point is the physical difference is that the person isn't conscious.... but we are unable to tell they're not. So they're not a P-zombie, but what are they?

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(March 5, 2018 at 12:39 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: The “Looks like a duck” argument that says a physical system that behaves conscious must actually be conscious totally begs the question. Implicit in the argument is an already conscious knowing subject interpreting the behavior of a physical system and assigning it meaning. It’s no different than assigning numerical meaning to abacus beads. When we manipulate the beads manually according to an algorithm they are still just dead wood. They have no meaning in themselves. Likewise, electronic switches and lights have no meaning other than what they get assigned by a knowing subject. And by logical extension, the activity of neurons, firing and not firing, also have no inherent meaning. Yes, they correlate with mental properties. But beads and switches can also correlate with their assigned meanings.

I agree 100% with all of this.

Quote:I see no justification for claiming that the brain, as a physical mechanism, does anything more that produce signs awaiting interpretation by a knowing subject. Signs themselves have no essential properties in common with the things they signify.

I don't agree with this though. My position is that the physical brain does explain consciousness (which is exactly why if you get hit hard in the head you lose consciousness... to give the most simplistic example).... but the problem is that whatever it is that lies within the brain that does explain consciousness is untestable by science precisely due to the fact that consciousness on the one hand is known from the first-person and personally only to each particular subject ("subject" as in conscious entity and not as in "topic") whereas science deals with things known from the third-person overall (by scientific consensus and evidential corroboration) and not to any subject in particular.

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(March 5, 2018 at 1:15 pm)polymath257 Wrote: If it is impossible to tell the difference through observation (i.e, science), then I would say both are sentient.

...and you would say that even when one is and the other isn't?

(March 5, 2018 at 8:18 pm)Hammy Wrote:

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(March 5, 2018 at 1:15 pm)polymath257 Wrote: If it is impossible to tell the difference through observation (i.e, science), then I would say both are sentient.

...and you would say that even when one is and the other isn't?

The definition I would use to determine sentience would say that isn't possible.

(March 5, 2018 at 10:09 pm)polymath257 Wrote:

(March 5, 2018 at 8:18 pm)Hammy Wrote:

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...and you would say that even when one is and the other isn't?

The definition I would use to determine sentience would say that isn't possible.

The problem is that you are elevating an epistemological stance to an ontological certainty.