Christianity is heading for a full allegorization

[GrandizerII]

So before I respond to this, I need to correct myself on one thing I said earlier: that zombies need not be metaphysically possible. This is not correct.

The zombie argument is as follows:

Zombies are logically possible (conceivable), therefore they are metaphysically possible, and therefore strict physicalism is false (consciousness is something on top of the physical).

And I don't think they are conceivable. I certainly cannot conceive of something that is physically identical to a conscious being that is not itself conscious. That seems nonsensical to me.

I can. For me, it's not that hard. In the same way I can conceive of centaurs and cyclopes. It's not logically contradictory.

Metaphysically possible, on the other hand, I don't know. My position on consciousness doesn't rest on the zombie argument anyway. But I don't think the idea of zombie is incoherent.

But that connection depends on our knowledge of that link. Previous to that, and even after molecules were known, it was certainly 'logically possible' that temperature was not the average kinetic energy of the molecules.

Temperature is the average kinetic energy of the molecule. They're not two distinct things here. You observe the motion of molecules and you attribute the descriptive label of "high temperature" or "low temperature" to the observation.

Of course, I'm assuming by temperature, you're not including one's experience of it and thereby conflating things.

I think it holds. We do not know the specifics of how neural activities correlate to conscious states. Until we do, saying what is and what is not possible is going to be fraught with dangers.

No, it doesn't hold. Even if you want to refer to neural activity as "consciousness", there's still that "perceptibly separate quality" on top of that.

And if we can 'explain' how conscious states work by pointing to their correlates in neural activity?

That would not be enough. If that's how one explains how computer programs exist, then they're not giving the full explanation. But we know theoretically how a computer program arises by explaining it in terms of a series of 0s and 1s. It is basically 0s and 1s.

I hope you're not conflating a computer program with our interactive experience of it, by the way.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If I detect something visual, it is 'vivid flashy'. Since I don't detect 'in the dark', if it is detected, it is not 'in the dark'. If I detect something auditory it is 'vivid soundy'.

An advanced computer arguably can detect things, but it does so "in the dark". So I wanted to be sure that's what you considering when you say "sensory detection".

But to your question earlier, whether there's a difference between a quale and sensory detection. I would say they're different. That the latter is one type of the former.

If you're having [what appear to be] phenomenological experiences, you're not a zombie.

And how can I determine that?

Via awareness of having such experiences.

And yet, for some reason, they *report* having such, just like their physically identical conscious counterparts do.

Yeah, they may report but it doesn't mean they have it.

Now, why would they report this if it is not the case?

I don't know, because they're conditioned to do so? Or some other reason?

Anyway, I don't think the thought experiment necessitates that a zombie report having experiences without any reason whatsoever.

And doesn't that show that zombies are an incoherent concept?

Not really. It may be counterintuitive, but it's not an incoherent concept.

How can I determine if I actually have 'phenomenological experiences'?

By being aware you're having the experiences.

What is the difference between 'seeing stuff' and 'vividly seeing stuff'? Is the alternative to 'dimly see stuff'?

It's probably the same thing, depending on how you're defining "seeing". But if you consider a car with sensors to have the capacity to "see", then there is a difference and the difference is relevant.

The alternative is "not seeing" or "seeing in the dark" depending on how you're looking at "seeing".