The Scripture Is False And The Biblical God Is Dead.

[The Grand Nudger]

A pz is an explicit rejection of epiphenomenalism. Where EP states that mental events are caused by physical events but have no effect on physical events, PZ states that there are no mental events in the first place.

[emjay]

A pz is an explicit rejection of epiphenomenalism.  Where EP states that mental events are caused by physical events but have no effect on physical events, PZ states that there are no mental events in the first place.

Not in my conception of pz's... my pz's do have mental events, but only the physical... neural... side... which epiphenomalism is happy to separate. So it's the flip side of epiphenomalism... that's what I meant by follows; not as it follows logically as an implication but intuitively follows or arises as a question from that. I should probably have used better wording.

[The Grand Nudger]

A pz with mental events is not a pz. That's the whole point of a pz, a thing whose identical physical events completely fail to produce mental events.

[GrandizerII]

P-zombies only need to be considered conceivable (and, subsequently, metaphysically possible), not physically possible, for the thought experiment to work.

And if things had been left as a thought experiment I'd be fine with that. Dmitry wants to take it a whole lot further though by trying to incorporate it into apologetics.

Leaving that aside, I have to wonder if philosophical zombies are even conceivable. The notion is to have something that is indistinguishable from a human by every measure despite lacking sentience or qualia. While we're at it, let's have philosophical fire, which is indistinguishable from actual fire despite lacking heat or light. Seems like a contradiction to me.

Is Dmitry an apologist? They said in another thread somewhere that they're not Christian, so I don't know what they are. That doesn't matter, anyway.

As for your philosophical fire example, I think the problem with that is if it lacks heat or light, then already you have an observable difference there between such a fire and the actual fire that we're acquainted with.

[GrandizerII]

I suppose I'd just a hide-bound old functionalist - for which I make no apology -, but it seems that we know enough (though granted not everything) about neurobiology and psychology to confidently reduce the whole discussion about qualia and p-zombies to little more than wordplay.

Boru

I mean, you're entitled to your opinion, but it's not really well-grounded. Functionalism is great at explaining a lot of aspects about the mind, but it has the obvious problem of not being able to account for qualia itself. It cannot account for the feeling of pain, for example. A lot of neuroscientists and psychologists, btw, are realists about qualia. It's not a niche thing among a minority group of elite academics.

And if the word "qualia" bothers you, we can stop using it, but it's still referring to something very real to us.

[emjay]

A pz with mental events is not a pz.  That's the whole point of a pz, a thing whose identical physical events completely fail to produce mental events.

Okay, well I think that's just the way I may conflate things in my head; that's probably part of this semantic confusion I have in my paradoxes. Depends whether you're defining a mental event as phenomenal consciousness, or as a process; that can be neural and/or phenomenal... I tend to do the latter, and therefore think of them interchangeably, which again may be part of this conflation. As I said, it's a clusterfuck thinking about this

[GrandizerII]

A pz with mental events is not a pz.  That's the whole point of a pz, a thing whose identical physical events completely fail to produce mental events.

Okay, well I think that's just the way I may conflate things in my head; that's probably part of this semantic confusion I have in my paradoxes. Depends whether you're defining a mental event as phenomenal consciousness, or as a process; that can be neural and/or phenomenal... I tend to do the latter, and therefore think of them interchangeably, which again may be part of this conflation. As I said, it's a clusterfuck thinking about this

FWIW, what you said was quite clear to me. And I agree, p-zombies could be used as an argument for epiphenomenalism (with some further fleshing out). It doesn't contradict it, in the least.

[The Grand Nudger]

The pz proposition defines mental events as subjectivity - the thing the pz is lacking. Conflating a thing for some other thing it must not be might speak to the conceivability of the notion. In effect, you're laundering the pz's rep by means of some other conceivable thing. Machine subjectivity, in this case. It's just too delicious to pass up - because this trouble is going both directions. Machine subjectivity rejects the pz proposition and deeply calls into question the ep proposition...which certainly cannot be argued for by rejecting the notion of mental events altogether ala pz.

[emjay]

Okay, well I think that's just the way I may conflate things in my head; that's probably part of this semantic confusion I have in my paradoxes. Depends whether you're defining a mental event as phenomenal consciousness, or as a process; that can be neural and/or phenomenal... I tend to do the latter, and therefore think of them interchangeably, which again may be part of this conflation. As I said, it's a clusterfuck thinking about this

FWIW, what you said was quite clear to me. And I agree, p-zombies could be used as an argument for epiphenomenalism (with some further fleshing out). It doesn't contradict it, in the least.

No worries... I've always figured we're kind of on the same page (or at least within the same book ) in on our thinking on these sorts of things, so I think I know you get it Anyway I may not be the best at articulating my ideas, even to myself, but it doesn't stop them from being genuine philosophical conundrums to me... ie not just wordplay.

[emjay]

The pz proposition defines mental events as subjectivity - the thing the pz is lacking.  Conflating a thing for some other thing it must not be might speak to the conceivability of the notion.  In effect, you're laundering the pz's rep by means of some other conceivable thing.  Machine subjectivity, in this case.  It's just too delicious to pass up - because this trouble is going both directions.  Machine subjectivity rejects the pz proposition and deeply calls into question the ep proposition...which certainly cannot be argued for by rejecting the notion of mental events altogether ala pz.

This one's gonna take a bit of unpacking... I'm sure you're right, you always are but again I find it hard getting my head around this because again subjectivity seems like a process to me; but maybe that's an improvement in trying to narrow down this conflation/confusion in that subjectivity implies let's say an integrated whole (ie the experience of phenomenal consciousness is of of an integrated whole, a subject looking out at the world) whereas I find it very hard to say the same when looking at the underlying physical correlates, in this case neurons and the brain. But then maybe that's yet another conflation/confusion added to the mix.