Mindfulness or Mindlessness?

[Silver]

Incorrect, conceivability is not equitable to possible.

[LadyForCamus]

Pzombies are conceivable, whatever is conceivable is possible - therefore pzombies are possible.

Are they? If a person walked up to me, behaving exactly like a person behaves, I would find it inconceivable that that person wasn’t having a conscious experience.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's one objection. To be fair, the sort of possibility being suggested is metaphysical possibility - not physical or natural possibility. I think that people who find conceivability compelling might agree to rule out many or any other kind.

While it may not be physically or naturally possible for light to be any faster, if there were an all powerful god it's conceivable that it could have tacked a +1 on there. While there may be no pzombies anywhere in the universe, it's at least conceivable that the nature of some thing could be to mimic humanity in all respects save one.

We're probably not going to find that mimic out there..it's gonna be the goddamned cockroach one and we're for dinner. Juuuust good enough to get us closer to their mouths.

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If a person walked up to me, behaving exactly like a person behaves, I would find it inconceivable that that person wasn’t having a conscious experience.

I have difficulty imagining it as well, but failures of my imagination may be just that.  Granting inconceivability and impossibility, though, we might learn that even if there were pzombies....we'd still be convinced they were conscious.

Just like the pzombies in the thought experiment. I wonder...being exactly like us in every way except the one, would they also doubt our reports of consciousness?

[LadyForCamus]

That's one objection.  To be fair, the sort of possibility being suggested is metaphysical possibility - not physical or natural possibility.  I think that people who find conceivability compelling might agree to rule out many or any other kind.  

While it may not be physically or naturally possible for light to be any faster, if there were an all powerful god it's conceivable that it could have tacked a +1 on there.  While there may be no pzombies anywhere in the universe, it's at least conceivable that the nature of some thing could be to mimic humanity in all respects save one.

We're probably not going to find that mimic out there..it's gonna be the goddamned cockroach one and we're for dinner.  Juuuust good enough to get us closer to their mouths.

---

If a person walked up to me, behaving exactly like a person behaves, I would find it inconceivable that that person wasn’t having a conscious experience.

I have difficulty imagining it as well, but failures of my imagination may be just that.  Granting inconceivability and impossibility, though, we might learn that even if there were pzombies....we'd still be convinced they were conscious.

Just like the pzombies in the thought experiment.  I wonder...being exactly like us in every way except the one, would they also doubt our reports of consciousness?

If they weren’t actually conscious, they wouldn’t be able to consider the idea one way or the other. 😛

[vulcanlogician]

It's a thought experiment. We're simply being asked to conceive of a person who does not have a conscious experience. It's not entirely implausible. Much of our social interaction (facial expressions, etc.) happen largely on an unconscious level. We may "make a face on purpose" or "be aware of the face we're making" but much of the time we are not.

The brain is a huge information feedback system. Most of it operates below conscious awareness. All we're being asked to conceive of (for sake of the thought experiment) is that the rest of the Freudian iceberg is also submerged.

[Angrboda]

It's a thought experiment. We're simply being asked to conceive of a person who does not have a conscious experience. It's not entirely implausible. Much of our social interaction (facial expressions, etc.) happen largely on an unconscious level. We may "make a face on purpose" or "be aware of the face we're making" but much of the time we are not.

The brain is a huge information feedback system. Most of it operates below conscious awareness. All we're being asked to conceive of (for sake of the thought experiment) is that the rest of the Freudian iceberg is also submerged.

To an extant. The P-Zombie requires that consciousness be epiphenomenal. If it's not, then P-Zombies can't exist in a way comparable to the way we exist.

[vulcanlogician]

I think that's why it's valuable as a thought experiment. It really gets you thinking about what the nature of consciousness really is. Is it epiphenomenal? Is it impossible for a being who responds exactly like a human being NOT to be conscious? (as Cumus thinks...) But if so, why not?

I don't really think you prove things with p-zombies. But it gets the noodle going.

[LadyForCamus]

It's a thought experiment. We're simply being asked to conceive of a person who does not have a conscious experience. It's not entirely implausible. Much of our social interaction (facial expressions, etc.) happen largely on an unconscious level. We may "make a face on purpose" or "be aware of the face we're making" but much of the time we are not.

The brain is a huge information feedback system. Most of it operates below conscious awareness. All we're being asked to conceive of (for sake of the thought experiment) is that the rest of the Freudian iceberg is also submerged.

Sure. My comment about question-begging was in response to an article I was reading about the pzombie experiment being proffered as an argument against monism, specifically.  That’s where my confusion stemmed from.

[vulcanlogician]

It's a thought experiment. We're simply being asked to conceive of a person who does not have a conscious experience. It's not entirely implausible. Much of our social interaction (facial expressions, etc.) happen largely on an unconscious level. We may "make a face on purpose" or "be aware of the face we're making" but much of the time we are not.

The brain is a huge information feedback system. Most of it operates below conscious awareness. All we're being asked to conceive of (for sake of the thought experiment) is that the rest of the Freudian iceberg is also submerged.

Sure. My comment about question-begging was in response to an article I was reading about the pzombie experiment being proffered as an argument against monism, specifically.  That’s where my confusion stemmed from.

Could you link the article?

(I understand if it's "lost to time"... just curious.)

[HappySkeptic]

Consciousness is a particular mode of information operation, which leads to self-awareness, a model of self, a model or the world, and a continuing simulation of past, present, and future for this self and world.

My assumption is that every person who ever existed was NOT a pZombie, and therefore consciousness is a very easy thing to create, given the correct computing structure and senses. We just have little idea how to do it.

Computers can mimic some of the things humans can do, but that doesn't make them conscious. Consciousness has been formed over hundreds of millions of years of evolution. It is a particular mode of operation and way of experiencing. Mimicking the outputs of a human does not recreate the complex inner life of a human. Of course, one day an artificial neural-network might arise which has a far more rich and complex type of consciousness than ours.