Philosophical zombies

[Edwardo Piet]

What you're talking about is two people who have a physical difference, being somehow different..despite seeming the same.   Well, sure, we're aware of people we might call high functioning in the sets of the impaired or damaged.  They routinely cause us to rethink what is required for a range of mental operation that could pass as average or unremarkable among their unimpaired and un-damaged peers.  It may be that a person could go full on, or at least very nearly full on bio-automaton.  It may even be that we are full on bio-automata that has fundamentally underestimated the capabilities of automatons...ourselves.

And the point is the physical difference is that the person isn't conscious.... but we are unable to tell they're not. So they're not a P-zombie, but what are they?

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The “Looks like a duck” argument that says a physical system that behaves conscious must actually be conscious totally begs the question. Implicit in the argument is an already conscious knowing subject interpreting the behavior of a physical system and assigning it meaning. It’s no different than assigning numerical meaning to abacus beads. When we manipulate the beads manually according to an algorithm they are still just dead wood. They have no meaning in themselves. Likewise, electronic switches and lights have no meaning other than what they get assigned by a knowing subject. And by logical extension, the activity of neurons, firing and not firing, also have no inherent meaning. Yes, they correlate with mental properties. But beads and switches can also correlate with their assigned meanings.

I agree 100% with all of this.

I see no justification for claiming that the brain, as a physical mechanism, does anything more that produce signs awaiting interpretation by a knowing subject. Signs themselves have no essential properties in common with the things they signify.

I don't agree with this though. My position is that the physical brain does explain consciousness (which is exactly why if you get hit hard in the head you lose consciousness... to give the most simplistic example).... but the problem is that whatever it is that lies within the brain that does explain consciousness is untestable by science precisely due to the fact that consciousness on the one hand is known from the first-person and personally only to each particular subject ("subject" as in conscious entity and not as in "topic") whereas science deals with things known from the third-person overall (by scientific consensus and evidential corroboration) and not to any subject in particular.

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If it is impossible to tell the difference through observation (i.e, science), then I would say both are sentient.

...and you would say that even when one is and the other isn't?