Philosophical zombies

[Edwardo Piet]

I had a weird idea before that consciousness is reality experiencing itself, somehow. The experience is everywhere and simultaneous, but it feels individual to any particular point of reference. It's compartmentalised, somehow. That's just nuts, I know. But it makes as much sense as anything else at this point.

Galen's bizarre argument on this is surprisingly strong too. It's one of those "That seems absurd and I must surely be missing something... but I find it hard to find the flaw in the actual logical argument", type of things.

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OK, I disagree that they are even possible, at least given the laws of physics as we know them (what could happen in a world where water is XYZ is another story).

What does physics have to do with it? And what's your logical argument against their possibility?

As I see it, consciousness is a phenomenon that automatically happens at a certain level of information processing complexity. Once you get to a certain stage, consciousness arises because you are processing information.

I've heard this but I don't see what information processing has got to do with it. I see it as things being arranged in a certain way, or some other detail we're unsure of. I see no reason to believe that a computer that had enough information processing would become conscious.

I think we don't know precisely what it is about intelligent brains in our case that happen to be conscious, and I think we should stop pretending to know. And I think there may indeed be beings out there that are more intelligent than us that didn't happen to evolve consciousness. Consciousness is utterly useless after all, it's just an epiphenomenon.

So, no, I don't think unconscious space aliens are possible either. If they have enough ability to process the information, they simply will be conscious.

I don't think information processing is relevant at all. You could have a rather unintelligent being that was conscious at some low level, and you could have a highly intelligent being that behaved conscious but wasn't conscious at all.

OK, so how do I determine if I am a zombie?

If you're conscious you know you're not one.

How do I know that what I *think* is feeling and experiencing is actually NOT what everyone else means by the terms?

Consciousness is just the fact that something can seem to be anything to you.

maybe I don't *really* feel and experience, but have instead some sort of vague shadow that is actually not conscious.

See this just makes no sense and demonstrates that you are confused. If you seem to experience something, then the seeming of that experience is an experience that seems a particular way to you.

The very notion of "It doesn't seem like I experience anything it just seems like I seem to experience something" is logically incoherent. Seeming to seem implies seeming.

How would I know?

Because that you are aware of yourself seeming to ask the question is absolute self-evidence to you that it seems that you are aware that you are asking that question.