(January 18, 2022 at 11:36 am)polymath257 Wrote:(January 18, 2022 at 11:29 am)GrandizerII Wrote: The zombie is meant to be a thought experiment, nothing more. Chalmers' point is that, logically speaking, one can have all the "outward appearance" of a conscious person and behave like such, and yet still lack qualia. If it's even logically possible (even if perhaps not metaphysically possible) for a p-zombie to exist, then this lends credence to the hard problem.
And I don't think it is logically possible in a way that leads to a hard problem.
It is sort of like asking if it is logically possible to have a high temperature without the underlying molecules moving at high speeds.
Sure, it is *logically possible*, but the actual fact is that it is physically impossible because temperature *is* the motion of those molecules. But that is what we have found out through a lot of investigation.
Our ignorance doesn't mean it is logically possible for it to be otherwise.
Ok, let's go back a bit then.
The mind being the brain or some such is a position you hold to (which I think is safe to say given what you have said to me), but is that why you think p-zombies are incoherent? I just want to be clear I'm getting you right here.
Quote:And I think that the idea that a mechanism is *required* is a philosophical mistake. There will be things that simply don't have deeper explanations. And that might *be* the explanation.
I certainly agree that at some point you must hit a dead end epistemically, but I don't agree we should therefore give up on trying to go as deep as we can seeking further explanations.
Quote:And what, precisely, is required? If that link between neural activity and conscious states is testable, predictable, and universal, what else is actually required?
An explanation as to how neural activity leads to conscious states ... in the same way that we know how neural activity leads to, say, physical reflexes.
