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A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a
thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...
in
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...
that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience,
qualia In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...
, or
sentience Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '':wikt:sentientem, sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it fro ...
. For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object it would not inwardly feel any pain, yet it would outwardly behave exactly as if it did feel pain, including verbally expressing pain. Relatedly, a zombie world is a hypothetical world indistinguishable from our world but in which all beings lack conscious experience. Philosophical zombie
argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
s are used in support of mind-body dualism against forms of
physicalism In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substanc ...
such as
materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...
,
behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent (behavioral psychology), antecedent stimuli in the environment, o ...
and functionalism. These arguments aim to resist the possibility of any physicalist solution to the "
hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to d ...
" (the problem of accounting for subjective, intrinsic, first-person, what-it's-like-ness). Proponents of philosophical zombie arguments, such as the philosopher
David Chalmers David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York Universi ...
, argue that since a philosophical zombie is by definition physically identical to a conscious person, even its
logical possibility Logical possibility refers to a logical proposition that cannot be disproved, using the axioms and rules of a given system of logic. The logical possibility of a proposition will depend upon the system of logic being considered, rather than on the ...
would refute physicalism, because it would establish the existence of conscious experience as a further fact.Chalmers, D. (1996): The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Press, New York. Such arguments have been criticized by many philosophers. Some physicalists like
Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
argue that philosophical zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible; other physicalists like Christopher Hill argue that philosophical zombies are coherent but not metaphysically possible.


History

Philosophical zombies are associated with David Chalmers, but it was philosopher Robert Kirk who first used the term "zombie" in this context in 1974. Prior to that, Keith Campbell made a similar argument in his 1970 book ''Body and Mind'', using the term "Imitation Man." Chalmers further developed and popularized the idea in his work. In his 1911 Oxford "Life and consciousness" Lectures, Henri Bergson already argues to his audience that it is impossible to prove with mathematical certainty that he is in fact an I, a creature enstowed with consciousness: "I might be a well constructed automaton - going, coming, speaking - without internal consciousness, and the very words by which I declare at this moment that I am conscious being might be words pronounced without conciousness."(Bergson, 1911). Bergson proceeds to argue that we infer from analogy between this other being and ourselves. Following this thought experiment further, Bergson proceeds to argue against the idea that conciousness is restricted to the brain - which he conceives as an organ of choice -, but instead resides in the whole body. (Bergson, 1911) There has been a lively debate about what the zombie argument shows. Critics who primarily argue that zombies are not conceivable include
Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
, Nigel J. T. Thomas, David Braddon-Mitchell, and Robert Kirk; critics who assert mostly that conceivability does not entail possibility include Katalin Balog, Keith Frankish, Christopher Hill, and Stephen Yablo; and critics who question the logical validity of the argument include George Bealer. In his 2019 update to the article on philosophical zombies in the ''
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...
'', Kirk summed up the current state of the debate: A 2013 survey of professional philosophers conducted by Bourget and Chalmers produced the following results: In 2020, the same survey yielded "inconceivable" 16%, "conceivable but not possible" 37%, "metaphysically possible" 24%, and "other" 23%.


Types of zombies

Though philosophical zombies are widely used in thought experiments, the detailed articulation of the concept is not always the same. P-zombies were introduced primarily to argue against specific types of physicalism such as
behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent (behavioral psychology), antecedent stimuli in the environment, o ...
, according to which mental states exist solely as behavior. Belief, desire, thought, consciousness, and so on, are only behavior (whether external behavior or internal behavior) or tendencies towards behaviors. A p-zombie that is behaviorally indistinguishable from a normal human being but lacks conscious experiences is therefore not logically possible according to the behaviorist, so an appeal to the logical possibility of a p-zombie furnishes an argument that behaviorism is false. Proponents of zombie arguments generally accept that p-zombies are not physically possible, while opponents necessarily deny that they are metaphysically or, in some cases, even logically possible. The unifying idea of the zombie is that of a human completely lacking conscious experience. It is possible to distinguish various zombie sub-types used in different thought experiments as follows: * A behavioral zombie that is behaviorally indistinguishable from a human. * A neurological zombie that has a human brain and is generally physiologically indistinguishable from a human. * A soulless zombie that lacks a
soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
. * An imperfect zombie or imp-zombie that is like a p-zombie but has slightly different behavior than a regular human. They are important in the context of the mind-evolution problem. *A zombie universe that is identical to our world in all physical ways, except no being in that world has
qualia In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...
.


Zombie arguments

Zombie arguments often support lines of reasoning that aim to show that zombies are metaphysically possible in order to support some form of dualism – in this case the view that the world includes two kinds of substance (or perhaps two kinds of
property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
): the mental and the physical. In contrast to dualism, in physicalism, material facts determine all other facts. Since any fact other than that of consciousness may be held to be the same for a p-zombie and for a normal conscious human, it follows that physicalism must hold that p-zombies are either not possible or are the same as normal humans. The zombie argument is a version of general modal arguments against physicalism such as that of
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emerit ...
. Further such arguments were notably advanced in the 1970s by
Thomas Nagel Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 to 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, ...
(1970; 1974) and Robert Kirk (1974) but the general argument was most famously developed in detail by
David Chalmers David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York Universi ...
in ''
The Conscious Mind ''The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory'' was published in 1996, and is the first book written by David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher specialising in philosophy of mind. Though the book has been greatly influential, Chalmer ...
'' (1996). According to Chalmers one can coherently conceive of an entire zombie world, a world physically indistinguishable from this world but entirely lacking conscious experience. The counterpart of every conscious being in our world would be a p-zombie. Since such a world is conceivable, Chalmers claims, it is metaphysically possible, which is all the argument requires. Chalmers states: "Zombies are probably not naturally possible: they probably cannot exist in our world, with its laws of nature."Chalmers, 2003, p. 5. The outline structure of Chalmers' version of the zombie argument is as follows; #According to physicalism, all that exists in our world (including consciousness) is physical. #Thus, if physicalism is true, a metaphysically possible world in which all physical facts are the same as those of the actual world must contain everything that exists in our actual world. In particular, conscious experience must exist in such a possible world. #Chalmers argues that we can conceive being outside of a world physically indistinguishable from our world but in which there is no consciousness (a zombie world). From this (so Chalmers argues) it follows that such a world is metaphysically possible. #Therefore, physicalism is false. (The conclusion follows from 2. and 3. by ''
modus tollens In propositional logic, ''modus tollens'' () (MT), also known as ''modus tollendo tollens'' (Latin for "method of removing by taking away") and denying the consequent, is a deductive argument form and a rule of inference. ''Modus tollens' ...
''.) The above is a strong formulation of the zombie argument. There are other formulations of the zombies-type argument which follow the same general form. The premises of the general zombies argument are implied by the premises of all the specific zombie arguments. A general zombies argument is in part motivated by potential disagreements between various anti-physicalist views. For example, an anti-physicalist view can consistently assert that p-zombies are metaphysically impossible but that inverted qualia (such as inverted spectra) or absent qualia (partial zombiehood) are metaphysically possible. Premises regarding inverted qualia or partial zombiehood can substitute premises regarding p-zombies to produce variations of the zombie argument. The metaphysical possibility of a physically indistinguishable world with either inverted qualia or partial zombiehood would imply that physical truths do not metaphysically necessitate phenomenal truths. To formulate the general form of the zombies argument, take the sentence 'P' to be true if and only if the conjunct of all microphysical truths of our world obtain, take the sentence 'Q' to be true if some phenomenal truth, that obtains in the actual world, obtains. The general argument goes as follows. #It is conceivable that P is true and Q is not true. #If it is conceivable that P is true and Q is not true then it is metaphysically possible that P is true and Q not true. #If it is metaphysically possible that P is true and Q is not true then physicalism is false. #Therefore, physicalism is false.Chalmers, 2010, p. 106-109 Q can be false in a possible world if any of the following obtains: (1) there exists at least one invert relative to the actual world (2) there is at least one absent quale relative to the actual world (3) all actually conscious beings are p-zombies (all actual qualia are absent qualia). Another way to construe the zombie hypothesis is epistemically – as a problem of causal explanation, rather than as a problem of logical or metaphysical possibility. The "
explanatory gap In the philosophy of mind and consciousness, the explanatory gap is the proposed difficulty that physicalist philosophies have in explaining how physical properties give rise to the way things feel subjectively when they are experienced. It is a ...
" – also called the "
hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to d ...
" – is the claim that (to date) no one has provided a convincing causal explanation of how and why we are
conscious Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
. It is a manifestation of the very same gap that (to date) no one has provided a convincing causal explanation of how and why we are not zombies. The philosophical zombie argument can also be seen through the counterfeit bill example brought forth by Amy Kind. Amy Kind’s example centers around the idea that you have to imagine a counterfeit 20 dollar bill was made to be exactly like an authentic 20 dollar bill. This is logically possible. And yet the counterfeit bill would not really have the same value. Like the critique against Descartes conceivability argument, are people really logically conceiving of zombies when they say they are? When philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception, and end up imagining something that violates their own definition. According to Amy Kind, in her book “Philosophy of Mind: the basics”>, The Zombie Argument can be put in this standard form from a dualist point of view:


Responses

Galen Strawson Galen John Strawson (born 1952) is a British analytic philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics (including free will, panpsychism, the mind-body problem, and the self), John Locke, David Hume, ...
argues that it is not possible to establish the conceivability of zombies, so that the argument, lacking its first premise, can never get going. Chalmers has argued that zombies are conceivable, saying "it certainly seems that a coherent situation is described; I can discern no contradiction in the description." Many physicalist philosophers have argued that this scenario eliminates itself by its description; the basis of a physicalist argument is that the world is defined entirely by physicality; thus, a world that was physically identical would necessarily contain consciousness, as consciousness would necessarily be generated from any set of physical circumstances identical to our own. The zombie argument claims that one can tell by the power of reason that such a "zombie scenario" is metaphysically possible. Chalmers states; "From the conceivability of zombies, proponents of the argument infer their metaphysical possibility" and argues that this inference, while not generally legitimate, is legitimate for phenomenal concepts such as consciousness since we must adhere to "Kripke's insight that for phenomenal concepts, there is no gap between reference-fixers and reference (or between primary and secondary intentions)." That is, for phenomenal concepts, conceivability implies possibility. According to Chalmers, whatever is logically possible is also, in the sense relevant here, metaphysically possible. Another response is the denial of the idea that qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are in the first place coherent concepts.
Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
and others argue that while consciousness and subjective experience exist in some sense, they are not as the zombie argument proponent claims. The experience of pain, for example, is not something that can be stripped off a person's mental life without bringing about any behavioral or physiological differences. Dennett believes that consciousness is a complex series of functions and ideas. If we all can have these experiences the idea of the p-zombie is meaningless. Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition". He coined the term "zimboes" – p-zombies that have second-order beliefs – to argue that the idea of a p-zombie is incoherent; "Zimboes thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer pains – they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!". Michael Lynch agrees with Dennett, arguing that the zombie conceivability argument forces us to either question whether or not we actually have consciousness or accept that zombies are not possible. If zombies falsely believe they are conscious, how can we be sure we are not zombies? We may believe we are experiencing conscious mental states when, in fact, we merely hold a false belief. Lynch thinks denying the possibility of zombies is more reasonable than questioning our own consciousness. Furthermore, when concept of self is deemed to correspond to physical reality alone (reductive physicalism), philosophical zombies are denied by definition. When a distinction is made in one's mind between a hypothetical zombie and oneself (assumed not to be a zombie), the hypothetical zombie, being a subset of the concept of oneself, must entail a deficit in observables (cognitive systems), a "seductive error" contradicting the original definition of a zombie.
Thomas Metzinger Thomas Metzinger (born 12 March 1958) is a German philosopher and professor of theoretical philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. , he is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, a co-founder of thGe ...
dismisses the argument as no longer relevant to the consciousness community, calling it a weak argument that covertly relies on the difficulty in defining "consciousness", calling it an "ill-defined folk psychological umbrella term".
Verificationism Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cogniti ...
states that, for words to have meaning, their use must be open to public verification. Since it is assumed that we can talk about our qualia, the existence of zombies is impossible.
Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
researcher
Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, an ...
saw the argument as
circular Circular may refer to: * The shape of a circle * ''Circular'' (album), a 2006 album by Spanish singer Vega * Circular letter (disambiguation) ** Flyer (pamphlet), a form of advertisement * Circular reasoning, a type of logical fallacy * Circula ...
. The proposition of the possibility of something physically identical to a human but without subjective experience assumes that the physical characteristics of humans are not what produces those experiences, which is exactly what the argument was claiming to prove. Richard Brown agrees that the zombie argument is circular. To show this, he proposes "", which are creatures ''non''physically identical to people in every way and lacking phenomenal consciousness. If existed, they would refute dualism because they would show that consciousness is not nonphysical, i.e., is physical. Paralleling the argument from Chalmers: It is conceivable that exist, so it is possible they exist, so dualism is false. Given the symmetry between the zombie and arguments, we cannot arbitrate the physicalism/dualism question ''a priori''. Similarly,
Gualtiero Piccinini Gualtiero Piccinini (born 1970) is an Italian–American philosopher known for his work on the nature of mind and computation as well as on how to integrate psychology and neuroscience. He is Curators' Distinguished Professor in the Philosophy De ...
argues that the zombie conceivability argument is circular. Piccinini’s argument questions whether the possible worlds where zombies exist are
accessible Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i. ...
from our world. If physicalism is true in our world, then physicalism is one of the relevant facts about our world for determining whether a possible zombie world is accessible from our world. Therefore, asking whether zombies are metaphysically possible in our world is equivalent to asking whether physicalism is true in our world. Stephen Yablo's (1998) response is to provide an
error theory Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or wrong. Moral nihilism is distinct from moral relativism, which allows for actions to be wrong relative to a particular culture or indivi ...
to account for the intuition that zombies are possible. Notions of what counts as physical and as physically possible change over time so
conceptual analysis Philosophical analysis is any of various techniques, typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition, in order to "break down" (i.e. analyze) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concep ...
is not reliable here. Yablo says he is "braced for the information that is going to make zombies inconceivable, even though I have no real idea what form the information is going to take." The zombie argument is difficult to assess because it brings to light fundamental disagreements about the method and scope of philosophy itself and the nature and abilities of conceptual analysis. Proponents of the zombie argument may think that conceptual analysis is a central part of (if not the only part of) philosophy and that it certainly can do a great deal of philosophical work. However, others, such as Dennett,
Paul Churchland Paul Montgomery Churchland (born October 21, 1942) is a Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh under Wilfrid Sellars (1969), Churchland ros ...
and
W.V.O. Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
, have fundamentally different views. For this reason, discussion of the zombie argument remains vigorous in philosophy. Some accept modal reasoning in general but deny it in the zombie case. Christopher S. Hill and Brian P. Mclaughlin suggest that the zombie thought experiment combines imagination of a "sympathetic" nature (putting oneself in a phenomenal state) and a "perceptual" nature (imagining becoming aware of something in the outside world). Each type of imagination may work on its own, but they're not guaranteed to work when both used at the same time. Hence Chalmers's argument need not go through. Moreover, while Chalmers defuses criticisms of the view that conceivability can tell us about possibility, he provides no positive defense of the principle. As an analogy, the
generalized continuum hypothesis In mathematics, the continuum hypothesis (abbreviated CH) is a hypothesis about the possible sizes of infinite sets. It states that or equivalently, that In Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC), this is equivalent to ...
has no known counterexamples, but this does not mean we must accept it. And indeed, the fact that Chalmers concludes we have epiphenomenal mental states that do not cause our physical behavior seems one reason to reject his principle.


Related thought experiments

Frank Jackson's
Mary's room The knowledge argument (also known as Mary's room or Mary the super-scientist) is a philosophical thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson in his article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982) and extended in "What Mary Didn't Know" (1986). The experim ...
argument is based around a hypothetical scientist, Mary, who is forced to view the world through a black-and-white television screen in a black and white room. Mary is a brilliant scientist who knows everything about the neurobiology of vision. Even though Mary knows everything about color and its perception (e.g. what combination of wavelengths makes the sky seem blue), she has never seen color. If Mary were released from this room and were to experience color for the first time, would she learn anything new? Jackson initially believed this supported
epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism is a position on the mind–body problem which holds that physical and biochemical events within the human body ( sense organs, neural impulses, and muscle contractions, for example) are the sole cause of mental events (thought, ...
(mental phenomena are the effects, but not the causes, of physical phenomena) but later changed his views to
physicalism In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substanc ...
, suggesting that Mary is simply discovering a new way for her brain to represent qualities that exist in the world. Swampman is an imaginary character introduced by Donald Davidson. If Davidson goes hiking in a swamp and is struck and killed by a lightning bolt while nearby another lightning bolt spontaneously rearranges a bunch of molecules so that, entirely by coincidence, they take on exactly the same form that Davidson's body had at the moment of his untimely death then this being, 'Swampman', has a brain structurally identical to that which Davidson had and will thus presumably behave exactly like Davidson. He will return to Davidson's office and write the same essays he would have written, recognize all of his friends and family and so forth.
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...
's Chinese room argument deals with the nature of
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
: it imagines a room in which a conversation is held by means of written Chinese characters that the subject cannot actually read, but is able to manipulate meaningfully using a set of
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
s. Searle holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave. Stevan Harnad argues that Searle's critique is really meant to target functionalism and
computationalism In philosophy of mind, the computational theory of mind (CTM), also known as computationalism, is a family of views that hold that the human mind is an information processing system and that cognition and consciousness together are a form of c ...
, and to establish
neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...
as the only correct way to understand the mind. Physicist Adam Brown has suggested constructing a type of philosophical zombie using
counterfactual quantum computation Counterfactual quantum computation is a method of inferring the result of a computation without actually running a quantum computer otherwise capable of actively performing that computation. Conceptual origin Physicists Graeme Mitchison and Richa ...
, a technique in which a computer is placed into a superposition of running and not running. If the program being executed is a brain simulation, and if one makes the further assumption that brain simulations are conscious, then the simulation can have the same output as a conscious system, yet not be conscious.


See also

*
Begging the question In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: ') is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. For example: * "Green is t ...
*
Blindsight Blindsight is the ability of people who are cortically blind to respond to visual stimuli that they do not consciously see due to lesions in the primary visual cortex, also known as the striate cortex or Brodmann Area 17. The term was coined by L ...
*
Causality Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cau ...
* Chinese Room *
Consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
* Dual-aspect theory *
Explanatory gap In the philosophy of mind and consciousness, the explanatory gap is the proposed difficulty that physicalist philosophies have in explaining how physical properties give rise to the way things feel subjectively when they are experienced. It is a ...
*
Functionalism (philosophy of mind) In philosophy of mind, functionalism is the thesis that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role, which means, their causal relations with other mental states, sensory inputs and behavio ...
*
Hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to d ...
*
Inverted spectrum The inverted spectrum is the hypothetical concept, pertaining to the philosophy of color, of two people sharing their color vocabulary and discriminations, although the colors one sees—one's qualia—are systematically different from the colors t ...
*
Map–territory relation The map–territory relation is the relationship between an object and a representation of that object, as in the relation between a geographical territory and a map of it. Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that ...
*
Mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
* Mind-body problem *
Neutral monism Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind. These theories reject the dichotomy of mind and matter, believing the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words ...
*
NPC (meme) NPC (; each letter separately; also known as the NPC Wojak), derived from '' non-player character'', is an internet meme that represents people who do not think for themselves or do not make their own decisions; those who lack intrapersonal comm ...
*
No true Scotsman No True Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect their universal generalization from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly.Antony Flew, ''God & Philosophy''p. 104 Hutc ...
*
Philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...
*
Problem of other minds The problem of other minds is a philosophical problem traditionally stated as the following epistemological question: Given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds? The problem is that knowledge of ...
* '' Quantum Night'' *
Reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
*
Sentience Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '':wikt:sentientem, sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it fro ...
*
Ship of Theseus The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object that has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object. According to legend, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, had rescued the children of ...
*
Solipsism Solipsism (; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known an ...
*
Turing test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to artificial intelligence, exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing propos ...
* Zombie Blues


References


Notes


Bibliography

*Bergson, Henry. 1911. 'Life and Consciousness', Conference given at the university of Oxford. Oxford: 1911. (https://archive.org/details/hibbertjournal10londuoft/page/32/mode/2up?view=theater) * Chalmers, David. 1995. "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness", ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'', vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 200–219
Online PDF
* Chalmers, David. 1996. ''The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory'', New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hardcover: , paperback: * Chalmers, David. 2003. "Consciousness and its Place in Nature", in the ''Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind'', S. Stich and F. Warfield (eds.), Blackwell. Also in ''Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings'', D. Chalmers (ed.), Oxford, 2002.
Online PDF
* Chalmers, David. 2004. "Imagination, Indexicality, and Intensions", ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', vol. 68, no. 1

*Chalmers, David. 2010. "the character of consciousness", OUP * Dennett, Daniel. 1995. "The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies", ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'', vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 322–326
Online abstract
* Dennett, Daniel. 1999. "The Zombic Hunch: Extinction of an Intuition?", ''Royal Institute of Philosophy Millennial Lecture''

* Kirk, Robert. 1974. "Sentience and Behaviour", ''Mind'', vol. 83, pp. 43–60. * Kripke, Saul. 1972. "Naming and Necessity", in ''Semantics of Natural Language'', ed. by D. Davidson and G. Harman, Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, pp. 253–355. (Published as a book in 1980, Harvard University Press.) * Nagel, Thomas. 1970. "Armstrong on the Mind", ''Philosophical Review'', vol. 79, pp. 394–403. * Nagel, Thomas. 1974. " What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" ''Philosophical Review'', vol. 83, pp. 435–450. * Thomas, N.J.T. 1998. "Zombie Killer", in S.R. Hameroff, A.W. Kaszniak, & A.C. Scott (eds.), ''Toward a Science of Consciousness II: The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates'' (pp. 171–177), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Online
* Yablo, Stephen. 2000. "Textbook Kripkeanism and the Open Texture of Concepts", ''Pacific Philosophical Quarterly'', vol. 81, pp. 98–122


External links


Online papers on philosophical zombies
by various authors, compiled by David Chalmers.

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A Chaospet comic on the subject of philosophical zombies

On The Conceivability of Zombies
Paper argues that Philosophical Zombies are not conceivable {{DEFAULTSORT:Philosophical Zombie Zombies Thought experiments in philosophy of mind Epistemology Internalism and externalism Hypothetical life forms