Christianity is heading for a full allegorization

[polymath257]

Well, an example that isn't motivated by causing suffering is giving an anesthetic to an animal during surgery. Suppose a limb need to be removed. Descartes would say that it is acceptable to hack through it because the animal feels no real pain. I would say that an anesthetic would be required unless there is a good medical reason otherwise. Not all pain is inflicted with the intent to cause suffering.

Fair point. And it's not the only example of potentially faulty assumptions about the presence/absence of phenomenal consciousness... I read recently about medical cases where due to brain structure, certain people were believed not to be conscious, but then exhibited signs of consciousness... showing up only that our knowledge of the neural correlates of consciousness is not complete, and therefore to make medical assumptions based on it is dangerous. So I agree these sorts of assumptions, about the presence or absence of conscious experience, can have serious real world implications, and is again why I would say the only ethical thing to do... on the principle of trying to prevent even the risk of causing harm... is in the presence of any such doubt about that, to err on the side of assuming the presence of phenomenal consciousness. Granted the structural issue is a different one from these dualistic/PZ issues, but there is crossover in the sense of making assumptions about the presence or absence of consciousness, in such a way that can have serious real-world effects.

I do think that one crucial aspect for consciousness is interaction with a changing environment *and* maintaining a record of internal states in memory. So a simple switchboard would not have the memory aspect.

As I said, that was just meant as a rough analogy of what I meant. A computer with discrete memory locations is not really a good analogy for the brain nor is a switchboard since neurons are basically just nodes in an ever-dynamic network, each essentially 'learning' and recalling in the same process... and it was that dynamic connectivity and learning that I was trying to emphasise with the example of a switchboard... a flux of ever changing neural dynamics of activation and connectivity/association, where that dynamic change in connectivity/association, is learning.

And I also think we need to get a better vocabulary. If I out a noxious chemical in with a bacterium, it will react and move away. That *is* a type of awareness. But I suspect it is quite different than what humans have simply because of the differences in complexity of the information processing. Plants *do* respond to changes in their environment, even releasing chemicals 'informing' other plants of dangers, leading them to react in ways that are protective. That is *also* a type of awareness, but it seems to be significantly different than the other two types.

There is a sense in which *everything* that is alive maintains information about its internal state and its environment in order to maintain homeostasis. That is a type of awareness.

In a different direction, even someone who is asleep (unconscious?) is processing information from the environment and can wake up if something unusual happens.  That is also a certain type of awareness. There other other states like 'conscious sedation' that also seem relevant.

We need a fuller vocabulary to discuss the similarities and differences between all of these different types of awareness. This lack of vocabulary and precision makes the discussion of consciousness very difficult because we cannot point to examples distinguishing the process we want to talk about.

I think this *is* a problem in the study of consciousness, but again, it is a 'soft' problem, not a hard problem.

I see the problem of consciousness as a question about information processing and that alone: how and why do we become 'aware' (have information) of something?

I think in practical terms we probably have very similar goals and outlooks on this question... ie we're both interested in what I called 'neural consciousness' (as opposed to phenomenal consciousness)... ie the neural correlates of consciousness... from the point of view of information processing etc. Likewise, I think we're both more interested in the 'soft problems' of consciousness than the 'hard problem'... like you, a complete and consistently reliable predictive mapping of neural states to conscious states would be as close to a complete explanation of consciousness as I think we could ever expect to get... I don't know if I would go so far as to say, as you seemed to earlier, that that consistent correlation *is* causation from a physics point of view, and therefore that there is no further question beyond that from a physics point of view; but then, I'm not a physicist/scientist, but you are presumably?

In contrast, to that same issue, I think of the hard problem, as in an explanation of how something physical like the brain gives rise to something apparently immaterial like phenomenal consciousness, as something that can only really be addressed with philosophical speculation, not science... so despite us getting there by different routes... it looks like roughly we are arriving at the same destination; you think there is no causation question to answer beyond that consistent correlation from a physics point of view? whereas I think, possibly due to dualist baggage skewing my thinking on these types of questions, that there *is* a question to answer but that science can't answer it, only philosophical speculation... but that being the case, I see it as something for idle speculation only and not something to as it were, put all my eggs in that basket; ie I think to do so, either individually or as a population, is basically a fool's errand that only serves to keep the whole issue of consciousness shrouded in mystery... gravitating around a question that we can never really expect to answer beyond unverifiable speculation... stifling real progress into 'softer' problems of consciousness, such as comprehensively mapping neural correlates of consciousness, which cumulatively I think will amount to as full an explanation of consciousness as we can ever realistically expect to get... with that explanation not really lacking in any practical meaningful way, but the difference between us seeming to be that with you that would be a complete explanation, but for me, that would still leave this philosophical question untouched. Basically if I'm understanding you correctly, from your physics point of view, you would write off this entire paragraph as at best irrelevant, or at worst, an erroneous/skewed perception of the problem? Or an unneeded, superflous problem? On account of seeing the buck of causation stopping at that reliable and consistent correlation? Not angry, just want to be clear if that's what you're saying.

Well, I see such philosophical speculation as being on par with fiction or fantasy. It is fun is discuss over drinks, but ultimately meaningless.

So yeah, I definitely agree I think there is a language barrier here so to speak, where we need a better vocabulary about these sorts of questions, because as it stands it's well open to conflation and misunderstanding.

Like, how you're defining awareness here, I'm not sure I understand. Basically does awareness imply phenomenal consciousness to you, or can a distributed neural state, in both time and space, but with nothing else involved (ie no phenomenal experience of any kind), be considered awareness?

Well, yes, I would consider it as a low level of awareness. it detects things in the environment and reacts to them.

But I am also very unclear about what, precisely, constitutes 'phenomenological consciousness' and how that would be distinguished from the information processing of awareness. In other words, when you say there is 'nothing else involved', it comes across as saying there is molecular motion with no temperature.

I don't disagree that it's information processing, but whether it's what I'd think of as awareness, I'm not so sure. It's awareness in a sense I'd say... in a kind of abstract global sense that it is information that will drive the behaviour of the organism, whether there is experienced phenomena or not (back to PZ assumptions I know), but just want to be clear whether you mean it in a phenomenal sense or not. This seems to be the crux of the communication problem between us... I have these potentially dualist assumptions, splitting consciousness into two aspects, phenomena and physical/neural, whereas you don't see it that way at all, or believe they are truly inseparable to such a degree that splitting them apart even hypothetically or conceptually, is erroneous thinking? Basically, do you make any distinction between the presence and the absence of phenomenal experience in your scientific thinking? I still think it might be difficult to get beyond this language barrier, if the two are conceptually inseparable to you. I think I can get as far as saying awareness is a conceptual middle ground representing the abstract/summary information encoded by that distributed neural state at any given moment, but whether I can equate that with phenomenal consciousness or not is a different matter... ie I'm not sure, but it looks like you may be saying they are the same thing? If so, that's again something we might differ on, but it might be at least a step towards a common ground between our different perspectives.what phenomenological consciousness is supposed to be if it isn't awareness.

I'm not sure I understand what phenomenological consciousness is supposed to be, frankly. How does 'consciousness of seeing red' differ from 'seeing red'? I just don't see a difference.
Perhaps the closest I can come is with certain optical illusions, where you have a single image and it 'flips' back and forth, possible with some control. I would imagine that each 'image' would be a different 'phenomenological experience', right? And we know the difference is just how the brain goes back and forth between 'interpretations'. is there something more to it?

So here is a related question: how do I know whether or not I am a zombie?
Maybe what I 'think' is 'conscious experience' isn't *actually* conscious experience and is, instead, what is being described as 'in the dark'. How can *I* tell? I certainly see things and hear sounds and feel touch. But that would be true whether or not I have phenomenological experiences, right? I would still be aware of those things. And I would be aware of being aware of them.
So what is the difference between awareness (as in information) and phenomenal consciousness?
When it is described as 'shiny', that is a visual perception and I can distinguish shiny things from non-shiny things. But so would a zombie. So saying that consciousness is 'shiny' is a metaphor, right? But what is it a metaphor of, precisely?

[Ferrocyanide]

Well, let's consider what Chalmers proposed. Imagine a conscious person. Then imagine another being that is physically identical in every way with that conscious person. The question is whether it is coherent to say the construct is not conscious. I don't believe it is.

For example, if the conscious person waxes eloquent about their experience of the color red, so will the zombie. If the conscious person goes into a long discussion about their qualia, so will the zombie. if the conscious person acknowledges Mary might have learned something when she saw red, so would the zombie. In every single physical situation, the two will be *exactly* the same in how they respond.

And no, I don't think it is possible for that to occur without the 'zombie' actually being conscious. At some point in some way, there would be something where a non-conscious being would react differently than a conscious one and *that* would be a physical difference between the two.

The zombie is meant to be a thought experiment, nothing more. Chalmers' point is that, logically speaking, one can have all the "outward appearance" of a conscious person and behave like such, and yet still lack qualia. If it's even logically possible (even if perhaps not metaphysically possible) for a p-zombie to exist, then this lends credence to the hard problem.

What is qualia?

What do you guys mean by zombie? Are you guys saying that it is a human that is missing the magical “soul”?

polymath257 mentioned something about a conscious human and then you have another human where all the right atoms are in the right place. In other words, we have a human duplicator. We put human 1 into the human duplicator and it creates an identical copy: human 2.

Human 2 doesn’t have the magical soul? It is missing consciousness (maybe)?


polymath257 says:

As another example, temperature is 'explained' by the kinetic energy of the molecules in a thing. if we ask for a 'mechanism', we will get into trouble, though. There is no 'mechanism' linking motion of molecules and temperature. Instead, the temperature *is* the motion of those molecules. And, from that description, we can derive the various properties of temperature.

I think you guys are thinking graphically. You are imagining that atoms/molecules are little balls moving around randomly and you want to call the average speed the temperature.

So far, it sounds like nobody is having difficulty in understanding this.

polymath257 says:

For example, electric current is described as the motion of electrons.

Again, I think you guys are thinking graphically. This helps you understand the natural world that surrounds you.
You imagine electrons as dots or balls going inside a metal wire.
So far, everyone is satisfied with this imagery.

polymath257 says:

But now, what is the mechanism of electrons being charged?

In other words, what is moving, what is happening to create that electric field + the mass? We don’t know. We are missing the imagery.


polymath257 says:

If I asked what else is needed to 'explain' what could possibly be required? When I say that mass produces a curvature of spacetime and that *is* gravity, is a mechanism for the production of that curvature required? NO. The explanation *is* the correlation between mass and curvature.

Again, I think you guys are thinking graphically.
You imagine a plane (flat infinite sheet). You imagine the Earth pushing down on that sheet and creating a kind of 3D parabola.
In your brain, you make a connection between that graphics and the gravity that you observe and you become satisfied.


As for consciousness, maybe you guys have the imagery as to what a neuron looks like and how neurotransmitters pass through the gates but I think you guys are having a hard time making a connection between that and consciousness.

polymath257 is having a hard time making that connection but thinks that the signal transmissions in the brain is the consciousness. Once you interrupt the machine(brain), the consciousness stops.
Also, what if I have a tank of hydrogen. Does the movement of all the hydrogen molecules represent some consciousness?

I’m not sure about GrandizerII.
Are you saying that consciousness is unrelated to the brain? It looks like you accept that you can have zombies.

[emjay]

...
I'm not sure I understand what phenomenological consciousness is supposed to be, frankly. How does 'consciousness of seeing red' differ from 'seeing red'? I just don't see a difference.
Perhaps the closest I can come is with certain optical illusions, where you have a single image and it 'flips' back and forth, possible with some control. I would imagine that each 'image' would be a different 'phenomenological experience', right? And we know the difference is just how the brain goes back and forth between 'interpretations'. is there something more to it?

1) 'seeing red' is the phenomenal aspect... consisting of let's say at the very least, the perception/illusion of an self/observor, and the experience of perceiving a colour in our visual field
2) the physical events of the environment interacting with our sense organs, in this case light interacting with the eyes, and the physical changes that causes in the neurons of the brain, is the physical/neural aspect.

It is my opinion that you can at least in theory have (2) without (1) and that in that case there would be no difference in the behaviour of the organism than if it had both (1) and (2)... and that such a being without (1) would be a philosophical zombie. I don't know how else I can say it.

So I see 'seeing red', as in the phenomenal experience of 'seeing red' as the superfluous aspect; without it, the brain would, in my opinion, still receive the same sensory inputs, still process it in exactly the same way, and still have all the same behavioural outputs and neural representations of its internal state data. Again, I don't know how to clarify my position any more than that.

In a sense that purely physical processing of (2)... which is non-localised, ie distributed, both in time and space, could be considered a low level description of a certain brain state, and at a higher, more abstract level, a description of information, rather than just data... ie for instance the difference between the physical bits storing a value in a register in a computer, and the useful variable name that holds it. I don't dispute any of that... and have no problem seeing the value of looking at things at different levels of description, but at the same time I don't believe this equates to (1).

Also, where we're using the word 'awareness', it's not intuitive at all for me to consider that as anything other than its most obvious sense, of the mental experience we all have of well, awareness... of experiencing mental phenomena, such as seeing red. Any other meaning I think is a stretch. So though the physical data processing in the above paragraph and the higher level abstract information it represents does in some sense represent the state of the organism in it's totality, and thus could loosely be said to include its awareness of the environment in some sense, I still don't think that equates to either (1) or what is normally meant by awareness.

So here is a related question: how do I know whether or not I am a zombie?

Well I would say, if you experience anything then you're not a PZ... because a PZ just does not experience, full stop. So if you have any kind of mental experience... of the unity, continuity, sense of self, experience of time and changing perceptions etc... then you're not a PZ.

Maybe what I 'think' is 'conscious experience' isn't *actually* conscious experience and is, instead, what is being described as 'in the dark'. How can *I* tell? I certainly see things and hear sounds and feel touch. But that would be true whether or not I have phenomenological experiences, right? I would still be aware of those things. And I would be aware of being aware of them.

This part I dispute. I would say if you have phenomenal consciousness then you see things, hear sounds, and feel touch, but if you do not have phenomenal consciousness, as in you do not experience anything, full stop, then though you neurally represent and process all the same data related to those perceptions, you do not actually experience them... so you do not see, hear, or touch; you have the internal/physical representations of that experience, but do not actually experience it. Likewise for awareness... depends how you're defining awareness, but for the regular use of the term, which I'd say is just that sense of self (whether that's an illusion or not... topic for another discussion maybe) that experiences phenomena; that is what I'd call awareness.... so I don't think you can have awareness, in that sense, without phenomenal experiences. There can be awareness in an abstract informational sense or raw physical data sense, but it's not the same thing as awareness in the sense of a first person construct of a self, experiencing anything, full stop.

So what is the difference between awareness (as in information) and phenomenal consciousness?

See further up for my thoughts on that.

When it is described as 'shiny', that is a visual perception and I can distinguish shiny things from non-shiny things. But so would a zombie. So saying that consciousness is 'shiny' is a metaphor, right? But what is it a metaphor of, precisely?

Well I'm not using the same metaphor as Grandizer... of shiny... but to translate that into what I've been saying, 'in the dark' I think would translate to 'does not experience, full stop' and 'shiny' would translate to 'experiences anything... ie experiences, full stop'.

[Ferrocyanide]

So here is a related question: how do I know whether or not I am a zombie?

Well I would say, if you experience anything then you're not a PZ... because a PZ just does not experience, full stop. So if you have any kind of mental experience... of the unity, continuity, sense of self, experience of time and changing perceptions etc... then you're not a PZ.

The question by polymath257 is badly formed. He isn't asking what the definition of zombie is.
He is in fact asking, "How do I know that I am experiencing anything?"
How is that determined?
How does the human determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He isn't experiencing anything." which means that he might be wrong.
How does the zombie determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He IS experiencing things." which means that he might be wrong.

There is this claim that you can have a person who does not experience anything and that it behaves just as any other human.

1) 'seeing red' is the phenomenal aspect... consisting of let's say at the very least, the perception/illusion of an self/observor, and the experience of perceiving a colour in our visual field
2) the physical events of the environment interacting with our sense organs, in this case light interacting with the eyes, and the physical changes that causes in the neurons of the brain, is the physical/neural aspect.

It is my opinion that you can at least in theory have (2) without (1) and that in that case there would be no difference in the behaviour of the organism than if it had both (1) and (2)... and that such a being without (1) would be a philosophical zombie. I don't know how else I can say it.

How can you have 2 without 1?

[GrandizerII]

Well I would say, if you experience anything then you're not a PZ... because a PZ just does not experience, full stop. So if you have any kind of mental experience... of the unity, continuity, sense of self, experience of time and changing perceptions etc... then you're not a PZ.

The question by polymath257 is badly formed. He isn't asking what the definition of zombie is.
He is in fact asking, "How do I know that I am experiencing anything?"
How is that determined?
How does the human determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He isn't experiencing anything." which means that he might be wrong.
How does the zombie determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He IS experiencing things." which means that he might be wrong.

There is this claim that you can have a person who does not experience anything and that it behaves just as any other human.

If I ask you to ponder whether you experience things or not, wouldn't you know that you are? You're seeing the words on this screen, right? The color, the font, and all. You're seeing the screen. It's all out there in your face.

The most a zombie can do, on the other hand, is state - or even believe - that they do experience things, but they wouldn't really know it because they lack that intimate acquaintance with such experiences. There is nothing out there in their face. Now you might not be able to tell if the other person is a zombie or a conscious being since perhaps they still give you the same response no matter what. But from your perspective, you have the intimate acquaintance with your experiences, so you would know that you are indeed experiencing things.

Yes, you're the judge of yourself. And the zombie is the judge of their self. You would be correct in your judgement, but the zombie would have no idea what they're saying when they report having experiences, or they're thinking of a different sense of the word "experience", one that they can fathom. As an example of the latter sense, a rock in a river experiencing the splash of water against it. The rock most probably doesn't have a visual field or a first-person perspective. It's just interactions.

Anyway, such objection doesn't show that a zombie is incoherent, only that you can't infallibly know if someone else is a zombie or not.

1) 'seeing red' is the phenomenal aspect... consisting of let's say at the very least, the perception/illusion of an self/observor, and the experience of perceiving a colour in our visual field
2) the physical events of the environment interacting with our sense organs, in this case light interacting with the eyes, and the physical changes that causes in the neurons of the brain, is the physical/neural aspect.

It is my opinion that you can at least in theory have (2) without (1) and that in that case there would be no difference in the behaviour of the organism than if it had both (1) and (2)... and that such a being without (1) would be a philosophical zombie. I don't know how else I can say it.

How can you have 2 without 1?

More like why should there be a 1 at all?

---

I think you guys are thinking graphically. You are imagining that atoms/molecules are little balls moving around randomly and you want to call the average speed the temperature.

So far, it sounds like nobody is having difficulty in understanding this.

In this universe with its laws of physics and such, the temperature is the motion of those molecules. In another universe or world, perhaps temperature is something different, but that's not really the point.

The point is that, in this universe, this is all what temperature is. There is nothing else about temperature unless we also include our sensations of it, but then that is not really adding to what temperature is perse. That's just our experiences.

I’m not sure about GrandizerII.
Are you saying that consciousness is unrelated to the brain? It looks like you accept that you can have zombies.

Maybe. They certainly are logically possible. Are they metaphysically possible? Am agnostic about this.

Are they physically possible? Most likely not.

[emjay]

First thing's first, no offence mate, but I don't think I can handle this conversation twice over, so if it's okay with you, can we keep this interlude brief? These sorts of conversations take a lot out of me, and I didn't realise how hard it would be to explain what to me is a perfectly simple and intuitive concept.

Well I would say, if you experience anything then you're not a PZ... because a PZ just does not experience, full stop. So if you have any kind of mental experience... of the unity, continuity, sense of self, experience of time and changing perceptions etc... then you're not a PZ.

The question by polymath257 is badly formed. He isn't asking what the definition of zombie is.
He is in fact asking, "How do I know that I am experiencing anything?"
How is that determined?
How does the human determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He isn't experiencing anything." which means that he might be wrong.

Beyond what I've said to polymath, I don't know how to answer this. Conscious experience is just something that is evident and different from nothing... there's the perception of something, anything. Even if you go deep down to the rawest level of it... forget colours or any other specific qualia, there is just at the very least the perception of change... there is something say over here on your visual field that is different from something over there... or change of perceptions over time. There is something there... that requires an explanation. And sure you can pretend it doesn't exist or write it off as an illusion, but I don't think that's helpful. I'm open to it being an illusion in some sense, but in the main sense of awareness of something, anything, of change, of time... of something different than nothing, it's not an illusion; there is something there needing an explanation. So I don't know what to say really; if you truly think it's possible to doubt the presence of your own conscious experience, then have at it if it helps you sleep at night, but I don't think there's anywhere for us to go in conversation.

How does the zombie determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He IS experiencing things." which means that he might be wrong.

There is this claim that you can have a person who does not experience anything and that it behaves just as any other human.
[...]

...
How can you have 2 without 1?

I'll answer the bottom bit first... how can you have 2 without 1? Because the brain and body is a physical system that obeys the laws of physics, and it's my contention that everything in consciousness has a neural representation, and therefore to the extent that consciousness is some sort of mirror/emergent property of the brain and/or its information processing, it only represents what is already represented neurally in the brain, and is therefore seemingly superfluous, dragged along for the ride as it were, but with no causal power of its own... a sideshow as it were. So it's my contention that it's at least theoretically possible for there to be such thing as a PZ; something that ticks along as the physical and biological machine that it is, but without that sideshow. It's not that I believe PZ's are definitively a thing, and as I said there'd be no way to detect one anyway even if they did exist, but more that I can't rule them out as a logical possibility. Ie in my view, there's nothing about the brain that necessitates the presence of phenomenal consciousness, therefore making it seem superfluous, and therefore making the possibility of its lack something I can't rule out.

As to the experience of the PZ... for one thing it wouldn't have experience, but it would still have the same neural representations as one that did... so if you asked it a question, it would still receive the same audio signals and process them in the same way, just not hear them as a phenomenal experience of sound, it would still neurally trigger the same memories, just not experience them in the mind's eye, because it has no mind's eye, it would still trigger the same brain areas involved in say planning and language, and the motor neurons involved in turning all of that into the behaviour of speaking to reply. As to the purely unprompted introspective... if the conscious can do it, so should the PZ, and again I see no reason why not; the brain is basically a black box, deeper than just direct inputs and outputs... as the behaviourists (hopefully) learnt long ago... ie we have a whole mental life ticking along under the hood (daydreaming, planning etc), not directly conditioned by external stimuli... and I'd contend that those processes involved in that are no different... they have their own neural representations to be activated, and do not require phenomenal consciousness. So in my view the PZ would daydream in the sense that it activates all the relevant neural representations, but it would not daydream in the sense of actually experiencing the phenomena of a daydream.

[The Grand Nudger]

Anyway, such objection doesn't show that a zombie is incoherent, only that you can't infallibly know if someone else is a zombie or not.

Cant tell if you are, either...at least..if you accept the pzombie postulate in the first place.  Dealers choice.

The incoherence is in the setup, and it's actually pretty simple. Imagine a thing that's the same...but different.

[polymath257]

The question by polymath257 is badly formed. He isn't asking what the definition of zombie is.
He is in fact asking, "How do I know that I am experiencing anything?"
How is that determined?
How does the human determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He isn't experiencing anything." which means that he might be wrong.
How does the zombie determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He IS experiencing things." which means that he might be wrong.

There is this claim that you can have a person who does not experience anything and that it behaves just as any other human.

If I ask you to ponder whether you experience things or not, wouldn't you know that you are? You're seeing the words on this screen, right? The color, the font, and all. You're seeing the screen. It's all out there in your face.

I don't know. What does it mean to 'experience' something? What would be different if I was a zombie?

The zombie clearly *detects* the colors on the screen and reacts to them. In what sense does he not 'see' them? He clearly detects pain and reacts to it. In what sense does he not experience it?

The most a zombie can do, on the other hand, is state - or even believe - that they do experience things, but they wouldn't really know it because they lack that intimate acquaintance with such experiences. There is nothing out there in their face. Now you might not be able to tell if the other person is a zombie or a conscious being since perhaps they still give you the same response no matter what. But from your perspective, you have the intimate acquaintance with your experiences, so you would know that you are indeed experiencing things.

How would it be *possible* to have 'nothing there' if they are detecting and reacting to stimuli all the time? That seems like nonsense to me.

And, again, how do I know I am actually 'experiencing' things as opposed to simply reacting to them?

Yes, you're the judge of yourself. And the zombie is the judge of their self. You would be correct in your judgement, but the zombie would have no idea what they're saying when they report having experiences, or they're thinking of a different sense of the word "experience", one that they can fathom. As an example of the latter sense, a rock in a river experiencing the splash of water against it. The rock most probably doesn't have a visual field or a first-person perspective. It's just interactions.

The river and rock have no information processing. We are talking about something physically identical to a person. How is it possible that they *not* have experiences?

The pain sensors are still active. They still respond to the pain. They still have ears that detect sound. They still smile when they hear a certain melody. They brighten up when a 'loved one' comes around. They have the same stimulation of the emotional centers.

How is it possible to have ALL of that and NOT have experiences? That, to me, seems utterly impossible.

Anyway, such objection doesn't show that a zombie is incoherent, only that you can't infallibly know if someone else is a zombie or not.

But from what you said above, the zombie gets to determine if they experience things or not. And they report that they do. So they *are* conscious by your criterion.

How can you have 2 without 1?

More like why should there be a 1 at all?

Because you have complex interactive processing of information about an environment together with complex reaction to that information. What else do you want for 'awareness'?

---

I think you guys are thinking graphically. You are imagining that atoms/molecules are little balls moving around randomly and you want to call the average speed the temperature.

So far, it sounds like nobody is having difficulty in understanding this.

In this universe with its laws of physics and such, the temperature is the motion of those molecules. In another universe or world, perhaps temperature is something different, but that's not really the point.

The point is that, in this universe, this is all what temperature is. There is nothing else about temperature unless we also include our sensations of it, but then that is not really adding to what temperature is perse. That's just our experiences.

And in this universe, your experience of red is the same as your brain processing the information obtained from your eyes in the visual cortex.

They are the same thing from different perspectives.

I’m not sure about GrandizerII.
Are you saying that consciousness is unrelated to the brain? It looks like you accept that you can have zombies.

Maybe. They certainly are logically possible. Are they metaphysically possible? Am agnostic about this.

What is the difference between 'logically possible' and 'metaphysically possible'? What metaphysics are you using?

Are they physically possible? Most likely not.

And that is all that is required. In *this* world, they are impossible. Just like temperature and molecular motion are identified in *this* world.

---

First thing's first, no offence mate, but I don't think I can handle this conversation twice over, so if it's okay with you, can we keep this interlude brief? These sorts of conversations take a lot out of me, and I didn't realise how hard it would be to explain what to me is a perfectly simple and intuitive concept.

The question by polymath257 is badly formed. He isn't asking what the definition of zombie is.
He is in fact asking, "How do I know that I am experiencing anything?"
How is that determined?
How does the human determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He isn't experiencing anything." which means that he might be wrong.

Beyond what I've said to polymath, I don't know how to answer this. Conscious experience is just something that is evident and different from nothing... there's the perception of something, anything. Even if you go deep down to the rawest level of it... forget colours or any other specific qualia, there is just at the very least the perception of change... there is something say over here on your visual field that is different from something over there... or change of perceptions over time. There is something there... that requires an explanation. And sure you can pretend it doesn't exist or write it off as an illusion, but I don't think that's helpful. I'm open to it being an illusion in some sense, but in the main sense of awareness of something, anything, of change, of time... of something different than nothing, it's not an illusion; there is something there needing an explanation. So I don't know what to say really; if you truly think it's possible to doubt the presence of your own conscious experience, then have at it if it helps you sleep at night, but I don't think there's anywhere for us to go in conversation.

But, again, if a zombie is physically identical to a conscious person, they would *also* perceive differences in their visual field. They would still react to pain. They would still be awed by a sunset.

What ese is required to be conscious?

How does the zombie determine that he is experiencing things? Is he the judge of himself? He might say "He IS experiencing things." which means that he might be wrong.

There is this claim that you can have a person who does not experience anything and that it behaves just as any other human.
[...]

I'll answer the bottom bit first... how can you have 2 without 1? Because the brain and body is a physical system that obeys the laws of physics, and it's my contention that everything in consciousness has a neural representation, and therefore to the extent that consciousness is some sort of mirror/emergent property of the brain and/or its information processing, it only represents what is already represented neurally in the brain, and is therefore seemingly superfluous, dragged along for the ride as it were, but with no causal power of its own... a sideshow as it were. So it's my contention that it's at least theoretically possible for there to be such thing as a PZ; something that ticks along as the physical and biological machine that it is, but without that sideshow. It's not that I believe PZ's are definitively a thing, and as I said there'd be no way to detect one anyway even if they did exist, but more that I can't rule them out as a logical possibility. Ie in my view, there's nothing about the brain that necessitates the presence of phenomenal consciousness, therefore making it seem superfluous, and therefore making the possibility of its lack something I can't rule out.

And that seems, to me, to be similar to saying you can have molecular motions and temperature is superfluous and 'carried along for the ride'. There could be no 'actual temeprature' even though everything is identical.

That makes no sense to me.

As to the experience of the PZ... for one thing it wouldn't have experience, but it would still have the same neural representations as one that did... so if you asked it a question, it would still receive the same audio signals and process them in the same way, just not hear them as a phenomenal experience of sound, it would still neurally trigger the same memories, just not experience them in the mind's eye, because it has no mind's eye, it would still trigger the same brain areas involved in say planning and language, and the motor neurons involved in turning all of that into the behaviour of speaking to reply. As to the purely unprompted introspective... if the conscious can do it, so should the PZ, and again I see no reason why not; the brain is basically a black box, deeper than just direct inputs and outputs... as the behaviourists (hopefully) learnt long ago... ie we have a whole mental life ticking along under the hood (daydreaming, planning etc), not directly conditioned by external stimuli... and I'd contend that those processes involved in that are no different... they have their own neural representations to be activated, and do not require phenomenal consciousness. So in my view the PZ would daydream in the sense that it activates all the relevant neural representations, but it would not daydream in the sense of actually experiencing the phenomena of a daydream.

OK, I simply don't see that as possible. If your brain daydreams, so do you.

I guess at this point, I see it as a reductio ad absurdum in about the same ways as solipsism is an absurdity. It isn't a *logical* absurdity: it is logically possible I am the only thing in the universe and everything else is an illusion.

But the concept is still absurd.

Is it logically possible that I am the only conscious thing in the universe and everyone else is a zombie? Yes. It is logically possible.

But it is still absurd.

[Ferrocyanide]

If I ask you to ponder whether you experience things or not, wouldn't you know that you are? You're seeing the words on this screen, right? The color, the font, and all. You're seeing the screen. It's all out there in your face.

Yes, I feel like I am experiencing things and experiencing things is used as evidence by me to conclude that I am experiencing things, that I have consciousness.
That evidence is not accessible to you.
So, I know what you are talking about.

The most a zombie can do, on the other hand, is state - or even believe - that they do experience things, but they wouldn't really know it because they lack that intimate acquaintance with such experiences. There is nothing out there in their face. Now you might not be able to tell if the other person is a zombie or a conscious being since perhaps they still give you the same response no matter what. But from your perspective, you have the intimate acquaintance with your experiences, so you would know that you are indeed experiencing things.

Yes, you're the judge of yourself. And the zombie is the judge of their self. You would be correct in your judgement, but the zombie would have no idea what they're saying when they report having experiences, or they're thinking of a different sense of the word "experience", one that they can fathom. As an example of the latter sense, a rock in a river experiencing the splash of water against it. The rock most probably doesn't have a visual field or a first-person perspective. It's just interactions.

There is this assumption that it is possible to make a perfect copy of a human, where every atom is in the right place yet it is lacking the “soul”.
And you are calling that the zombie.
Why do you think that it is possible to have an atomic copy of a human that is lacking the consciousness, the soul?

The other issue that I think polymath257 was trying to raise is that maybe your senses are fooling you. Maybe your experiences are insufficient and you don’t qualify to get the certificate of “This pile of atoms has consciousness”. Maybe no human is qualified to get that certificate.

Anyway, such objection doesn't show that a zombie is incoherent, only that you can't infallibly know if someone else is a zombie or not.

It depends. First, you have to know what you are looking for. A good definition of consciousness is needed.
I think that definition will have to be based on a certain circuit or program.
If we decide that we are looking for a certain super complex circuit and we find such a circuit in an ant’s brain, we can certify that the ant has consciousness.

For example, let’s forget this consciousness thing in this example.
Let’s say I am looking for an ADDER circuit.
I can open up every IC chip and inspect the connections between the transistors. If I find a circuit that matches up with the design of an ADDER circuit, I can certify: “This chip poses the ability to add two 32 bit integers”.
I can look at pieces of rocks, wood and everything and look for ADDER circuits.

But, if someone claims that adding integers is done by a soul.... what the heck is a soul? What I am looking for?

More like why should there be a 1 at all?

I don’t know. At this point in time, the brain looks like a certain circuitry and I guess, when there is a certain complexity to it or a certain circuitry, there is this phenomenon of “feeling like you are special”. Along with that, there is abstract thought, the ability to develop a language, the ability to ask “Why” questions and be curious.

In this universe with its laws of physics and such, the temperature is the motion of those molecules. In another universe or world, perhaps temperature is something different, but that's not really the point.

The point is that, in this universe, this is all what temperature is. There is nothing else about temperature unless we also include our sensations of it, but then that is not really adding to what temperature is perse. That's just our experiences.

I was trying to explain why humans think that they understand temperature and other phenomenon.
Humans start by being curious about X. “How does X work?”
They think in terms of mechanism, usually as “this is an object and it moves like this”.
They accept that as the explanation and they become satisfied.

What is an electron? How does it work?
We know it has a certain mass and a certain charge and a certain spin.
What is happening to give it that mass? What is happening to give it that charge? What is happening to give it that spin?
We don’t have the mechanism and mechanism seems to usually mean the graphics.
===>Result: The human is NOT satisfied

How does a mechanical watch work?
There is a battery that provides an energy source. This turns a motor and it creates stress in a spring, .....
===>Result: The human is satisfied

[HappySkeptic]

Consciousness entails:

1) Awareness of "now" experience.
2) Imagining potential or past experiences.
3) Awareness of making choices.
4) A sense of self, to keep the self living.

Where does the self "awareness" come from? One could imaging a p-zombie making predictions and making choices. Trained AI does it all the time.

Consciousness exists because it is likely the only way nature could come up with to do the above 4 things. It likely requires a particular mode of operation. If we can understand the mode of operation, it would be possible to replicate. Then, our AI robot would also be conscious.

One could create an AI that doesn't have this mode of operation, yet still does some tasks very well. I would argue that it likely wouldn't have a sense of self, or be as flexible in its thinking.