Philosophical zombies

[WinterHold]

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I would point my sight at the [1) results 2) conditions] if I want to compare experiences.
An experience is nothing but the amount of time you spent at doing something.
-If I analyze the results alone; then I'm judging the quality of the experience (or time spent doing that thing in question).
-If I analyze the conditions alone; then I'm judging the justification of the experience's quality.
As for zombies; they can't generate proper results because the conditions fail them every time; but they are the cause of this failure. In other words; they corrupt their own minds by their own hands.
We are all equal; but the conditions around the experience's generation lead to different results, one of the results is the doomed zombie state.

If you have a zombie and a non-zombie in front of you, how do you tell which is which? To know that "corruption" has gone on, you'd have to know how a person is supposed to be acting before the corruption.

I would look at the results of their logic. The question for me is "in which context" should I judge that the result is complete or not?
Is death the end, or is the continues advent of generations is the context; i.e a never ending context?

Are we living a result inflicted by the past generations? That means that the conditions are not so alien to the results.
But to answer you; a zombie is that person producing the wrong results. I need to observe the results of their actions first, then decide.

[robvalue]

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If you have a zombie and a non-zombie in front of you, how do you tell which is which? To know that "corruption" has gone on, you'd have to know how a person is supposed to be acting before the corruption.

I would look at the results of their logic. The question for me is "in which context" should I judge that the result is complete or not?
Is death the end, or is the continues advent of generations is the context; i.e a never ending context?

Are we living a result inflicted by the past generations? That means that the conditions are not so alien to the results.
But to answer you; a zombie is that person producing the wrong results. I need to observe the results of their actions first, then decide.

Can you give any examples here of what two people do/say under your supervision, and how you come to your conclusion? I have no idea what you mean by "wrong results". People get things wrong all the time, and are illogical all the time. What do you mean, "is death the end"? Are you saying you'd ask people that question? Am I a zombie because I think it is indeed the end?

Let's say my physical body is replicated exactly. The resultant brain has all my knowledge and works exactly the same as my brain. It's not an imposter as such, it is just me, minus whatever "consciousness" is supposed to be. It will produce the same results as me under examination, unless you can somehow find a way to measure "how conscious" each one is. How do you tell the difference?

My answer is that this doesn't make sense. If it's a copy of me, it's as conscious as I am. Consciousness is a direct result of my physical brain: that is what all evidence points to. Otherwise, my consciousness/essence is some other entity, which exists on some other plane which we can't ever access. But if we can't access it, how can we conclude it exists at all?

For all I know, everyone else could be zombies, or some of them, or none of them. I can't think of any way I can tell the difference.

[bennyboy]

Solipsism is either a problem or it is not.  Either knowledge is accessible or it is not.  This has nothing..specifically, to do with whether or not you have an instinct.

I think it has everything to do with instinct.

No, the instinct is the reason that we do not embrace solipsism as the extent of actual knowledge. We feel that others are real, and have emotional responses to their facial expressions and mannerisms. It is this which takes me out of solipsism, not any sound philosophical position or spiritual realization.

"Meaningfully Conscious Persons Only" water fountains anyone?

All jokes aside, something like this could be a thing, perhaps within a lifetime or two.

[Foxaèr]

A philosophical zombie is something that is physically identical to a human in every way, yet has no conscious experience.

So, basically, a phone zombie.

[The Grand Nudger]

Solipsism is either a problem or it is not.  Either knowledge is accessible or it is not.  This has nothing..specifically, to do with whether or not you have an instinct.

I think it has everything to do with instinct.

No, the instinct is the reason that we do not embrace solipsism as the extent of actual knowledge.  We feel that others are real, and have emotional responses to their facial expressions and mannerisms.  It is this which takes me out of solipsism, not any sound philosophical position or spiritual realization.

We've already allowed every possible connotation of solipsism.  The space of discussion for it reaches a terminus with an implied -"but I/we/you/everyone could be wrong" after every single statement.  There are probably an infinite number of ways that this statement could be true and all but 1 of them have nothing to do with the truth status of solipsism on the nature of reality or knowledge or consciousness.  

That is already contained as an implication of all knowledge statements derived from true conclusions.  We don't often speak it in common language, but propositional implication formally begins with the term "if".  The answer to every "what if not" question is and always will be "then not", no matter what the question refers to.   

I suppose your instincts have utility for you, in this regard..but they're not necessary to reach the same conclusion.  Having reached it, though, can we dispense with invocations of 100% or 99% certainty as though they represented anything more or less than the common assumption that, if we were wrong, we would be wrong..and that if things were different, they'd be different..... and proceed?  

All jokes aside, something like this could be a thing, perhaps within a lifetime or two.

I'm only joking because I think so too.  Some people throw stones at the devil.  I laugh. We already segregate students based upon IQ. It's voluntary, but a person would have to be a complete mouth breather not to avail themselves of the programs. I'm sure it could start out of something as innocuous as that...even if we never see any smart machines. We may one day decide that the efficient education of exceptional people has practical requirements like faster access to water without any waiting line interrupting the flow of study, lol. If there's a fountain on your hall or floor, but only in-program students are allowed to be on the floor...don't you already have your own private group fountain? See...we're at least halfway there already.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm having an objectively fantastic day today because I had a wisdom tooth removed that was causing me agony every day so I've gone from agony to zero pain. And I feel huge amounts of physical relief.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to Khem and Jor for being a rude and condescending jerkass to them in this thread. And I also apologize to Polymath for being a little condescending towards him. I also ended putting Khem on ignore which was intensely pathetic of me to do. I'll take him off ignore now.

This is a very interesting topic and hence I'm sorry for shitting up your thread, Rob.

To end this post with something on topic... if the only possible definition of a philosophical zombie that is considered acceptable is a insentient person with a brain physically identical to a sentient person... then I do indeed think philosophical zombies are impossible.

However my question to put to those who hold that opinion is the following question: If you have two people with different brains and one of them is sentient and one of them is not... but despite having different brains... science is unable to tell who is sentient and who isn't... what would you call the person who isn't sentient? And if you have no name for such a person... do you agree with me that such a person would be just as interesting as a philosophical zombie if a philosophical zombie were possible for exactly the same reasons? And if you do agree with that... can you understand why I am tempted to call that sort of person a kind of philosophical zombie?

[The Grand Nudger]

However my question to put to those who hold that opinion is the following question: If you have two people with different brains and one of them is sentient and one of them is not... but despite having different brains... science is unable to tell who is sentient and who isn't... what would you call the person who isn't sentient?

If they have meaningfully different brains then we would likely refer to that meaningful difference as a possible explanation between the two.  If whatever meaningful difference they have produces no discernible effect..such as we cannot otherwise tell between the two which is the control and who is the outlier....then we might suppose that specific disparity between us is functionally inconsequential to consciousness in the first place.  

And if you have no name for such a person... do you agree with me that such a person would be just as interesting as a philosophical zombie if a philosophical zombie were possible for exactly the same reasons? And if you do agree with that... can you understand why I am tempted to call that sort of person a kind of philosophical zombie?

Not really, because a p-zombie is explicitly proposed to be identical in every physical regard for a very specific reason.  It's meant as a possible demonstration of the weakness of a functional definition of consciousness derived from physical systems.  The reason that the p-zombie has the same brain we do is to -remove- any possibility that a neurological or mechanical difference could distinguish something between the two, or in fact b the reason that one was functionally different from the other even if it could evade a test.  The whole point of the proposition or the hypothetical zombie is to communicate that position.  


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.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I am completely on the side of Hammy on this one.

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. As such 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 think David Bentely Hart states the issue well...


"Computational models of the mind would make sense if what a computer actually does could be characterized as an elementary version of what the mind does, or at least as something remotely like thinking. In fact, though, there is not even a useful analogy to be drawn here. A computer does not even really compute. We compute, using it as a tool. We can set a program in motion to calculate the square root of pi, but the stream of digits that will appear on the screen will have mathematical content only because of our intentions, and because we—not the computer—are running algorithms. The computer, in itself, as an object or a series of physical events, does not contain or produce any symbols at all; its operations are not determined by any semantic content but only by binary sequences that mean nothing in themselves. The visible figures that appear on the computer’s screen are only the electronic traces of sets of binary correlates, and they serve as symbols only when we represent them as such, and assign them intelligible significances. The computer could just as well be programmed so that it would respond to the request for the square root of pi with the result ‘Rupert Bear’; nor would it be wrong to do so, because an ensemble of merely material components and purely physical events can be neither wrong nor right about anything—in fact, it cannot be about anything at all. Software no more ‘thinks’ than a minute hand knows the time or the printed word ‘pelican’ knows what a pelican is."

– David Bentley Hart

[The Grand Nudger]

A comp representationalist would agree with you, sort of.  They don't view any particular mental state as having an inherent meaning either, but as being part of a system of manipulating useful abstractions.

Any meaning exterior to the operation of that system is derived and referent. If, for example, we catalogued every nueron in a brain and gave them unique identifiers, collection A-176Virgo may be the physical correlates of "ice cream" in some individual. Some other set may also serve the purpose (or many sets...both within and between subjects. This is, quietly, the most disturbing implication of any consciousness based upon computational representation. That every brain may speak it's own language, and that the language may not be, strictly, internally consistent over time.

This still leaves sociability and developed behaviors as a translation between us, ofc. Your A-176Virgo is my B-1Catastrophe, but we have a footnote in culture and discussion as to their cross referential nature.

[polymath257]

I'm having an objectively fantastic day today because I had a wisdom tooth removed that was causing me agony every day so I've gone from agony to zero pain. And I feel huge amounts of physical relief.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to Khem and Jor for being a rude and condescending jerkass to them in this thread. And I also apologize to Polymath for being a little condescending towards him. I also ended putting Khem on ignore which was intensely pathetic of me to do. I'll take him off ignore now.

This is a very interesting topic and hence I'm sorry for shitting up your thread, Rob.

To end this post with something on topic... if the only possible definition of a philosophical zombie that is considered acceptable is a insentient person with a brain physically identical to a sentient person... then I do indeed think philosophical zombies are impossible.

However my question to put to those who hold that opinion is the following question: If you have two people with different brains and one of them is sentient and one of them is not... but despite having different brains... science is unable to tell who is sentient and who isn't... what would you call the person who isn't sentient? And if you have no name for such a person... do you agree with me that such a person would be just as interesting as a philosophical zombie if a philosophical zombie were possible for exactly the same reasons? And if you do agree with that... can you understand why I am tempted to call that sort of person a kind of philosophical zombie?

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