forced to type certain combinations of letters at gunpoint
Except there can’t be a gunman in the zombie universe if it’s the same as ours (unless… that explains everything!). This essay is trying to convince you that there’s no way you can write about consciousness without something real causing you to write about consciousness. Even a mistaken belief about consciousness has to come from somewhere. Try now to imagine a zombie world with no metaphorical gunman and see what comes up.
Well that’s answered by what I said about psychophysical laws and the evolutionary origins of consciousness. What caused us to believe in consciousness is not (necessarily) the same issue as what reasons we have to believe it.
I think you’re smuggling the gunman into evolution. I can come up with good evolutionary reasons why people talk about God despite him not existing, but I can’t come up with good evolutionary reasons why people talk about consciousness despite it not existing. It’s too verbose to go into detail, but I think if you try to distinguish the God example and the consciousness example you’ll see that the one false belief is in a completely different category from the other.
Except there can’t be a gunman in the zombie universe if it’s the same as ours (unless… that explains everything!). This essay is trying to convince you that there’s no way you can write about consciousness without something real causing you to write about consciousness. Even a mistaken belief about consciousness has to come from somewhere. Try now to imagine a zombie world with no metaphorical gunman and see what comes up.
Well that’s answered by what I said about psychophysical laws and the evolutionary origins of consciousness. What caused us to believe in consciousness is not (necessarily) the same issue as what reasons we have to believe it.
I think you’re smuggling the gunman into evolution. I can come up with good evolutionary reasons why people talk about God despite him not existing, but I can’t come up with good evolutionary reasons why people talk about consciousness despite it not existing. It’s too verbose to go into detail, but I think if you try to distinguish the God example and the consciousness example you’ll see that the one false belief is in a completely different category from the other.