(January 24, 2023 at 3:48 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:(January 24, 2023 at 1:51 pm)emjay Wrote: Okay, at least for the sake of argument, I'll try and accept your way of talking about it, accepting that mine is most probably flawed, but it nonetheless is how I think about it. Ie in this context I think of hearing as a process, which consists of phenomenal hearing and/or the underlying physical processes that correspond with it. You consider it only the phenomenal experience of hearing. Your view is correct I'm sure, and probably the simplest dictionary definition, but nonetheless when I'm grappling with all of this, my way is how I conceptualise it in my mind. But for the sake of this argument, yes we can agree, zombie-dogs don't hear per se... but they do some equivalent underlying physical process, which results in identical real world consequences, is what I contend.You know I love our convos.
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be obstinate, I do most certainly appreciate your viewpoints on all of this, but there does still seem to be some fundamental or subtle misunderstanding between us, because my answer remains pretty much the same for all of these questions; whatever you experience phenomenally has underlying physical processes (unless you're contending that they don't?, or that some don't?), and therefore any phenomenal fact we learn has a corresponding physical process, just as much as any of the consequences of that fact... we're just looking at them in terms of different levels of description, the physical level and the phenomenal. In practical terms, if it's contended to be a mirror image, then phenomenal consciousness may as well be considered causal... and thus be on full equal terms with the physical underbelly, but just the possibility that that's not the case, as it's envisioned that both levels of description have exactly the same outcomes, then ep and pz's seem to remain conceivable.
Thank you, that's nice to hear
I hope you know I feel the same Quote:Our world and the zombie twin world are supposed to be completely identical, as we and the zombies are completely identical.... and yet they and we do not result in identical real world consequences for identical real world events. In only one of the worlds and only one of the creatures, our world and us, does this identical stuff and identical process yield qualia.
I can accept that statement. It's just that under ep that additional qualia in one of those worlds is considered inert so that even if they those worlds are not identical in the way you've described, they are tantamount to being identical, in a causal sense at least. That may be the root of this confusion between us.
Quote:I'm not sure if pz's are conceivable (if logical conceivability is desired for possibility, later down the line) but ep I think is, sure. In fact, I think that if we're committed to stating, as one does in ep, that a set of physical processes cause phenomenal content - then we couldn't logically allow that there's some creature that has those processes - exactly the same as we do, but not that content.
Yeah, I have no problem with this statement either; I'm not asserting that I think there are actual pz's out there... if I was to meet a clone of me for instance, I'd have no rational justification for thinking it could lack qualia while I have it. And extend that thinking to any human life or indeed any animal life which appears to exhibit signs of consciousness, though of course that link gets more tenuous the further removed we are from direct human experience, ie more reason to assume an ape is conscious than an ant, based on our own experience and the similarities between species, but the point remains the same. So yeah, I'm not actually suggesting that I think there are pz's in our world; all indications suggest there are not, but the philosophical questions remain of why not, especially in light of an epiphenomalist viewpoint.
