RE: Would you rather
October 4, 2016 at 11:44 pm
(This post was last modified: October 4, 2016 at 11:50 pm by emjay.)
(October 4, 2016 at 11:27 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote:(October 4, 2016 at 11:22 pm)Emjay Wrote: Yeah, I know it's sad... but it just doesn't make any sense to me it existing in the first place because in my view as a 'functionalist epiphenomenalist' it's entirely impotent... so it seems to me that all over the world, for millions of years, there have been all these consciousnesses, all experiencing their own pain and suffering, needlessly. A philosophical zombie would behave exactly the same way... the world would be exactly the same as it is now... there would be the same effects of and responses to pain, but no pain would be felt.
The pain would still be felt, it's just that no one would be there to feel it. You're describing a world where the lights haven't gone on. It's practically inexistence. This world is only real because it is real to us. Otherwise, it's nothingness for its own sake.
I don't see how that's an improvement. Personally, I would prefer to exist no matter what, so long as I know there's a way up somewhere down the road.
True, it would be felt in psychological consciousness whatever form that took, but not phenomenally. Yeah I am saying nothingness... just atoms doing their clockwork universey thing but with no observers there to see it. To me it's an improvement because there are exactly the same behavioural effects as a philosophical zombie, eg I'm born at the same time etc... still type on this forum, but without any experiential components... so it would be pointless from the perspective of an observer, except in that world there wouldn't even be one to make that call. But I know I'm probably in a minority of one with this view... so I understand your view, but for me I didn't ask to exist and I'd rather I didn't, nor can I understand why I do.
