You are simply begging the question. For me philosophical zombies make exactly as much sense as cold objects that behave like hot objects in every way. I can even imagine someone accepting that molecular movement explains all observable heat phenomena, but still confused enough to ask where hot and cold come from, and whether it’s metaphysically possible for an object with a lot of molecular movement to be cold anyway. The only important difference between that sort of confusion and the whole philosophical zombie business in my eyes is that heat is a lot simpler so people are far, far less likely to be in that state of confusion.
This comment is unclear. I noted that out heat concepts are ambiguous, between what we can call physical heat (as defined by its causal-functional role) and phenomenal heat (the conscious sensations). Now you write:
I can even imagine someone accepting that molecular movement explains all observable heat phenomena, but still confused enough to ask where hot and cold come from...
Which concept of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ are you imagining this person to be employing? If the phenomenal one, then they are (in my view) correct to see a further issue here: this is simply the consciousness debate all over again. If the physical-functional concept, then they are transparently incoherent.
Now, perhaps you are suggesting that you only have a physical-function conception of consciousness, and no essentially first-personal (phenomenal) concepts at all. In that case, we are talking past each other, because you do not have the concepts necessary to understand what I am talking about.
You are over-extending the analogy. The heat case has an analogous dichotomy (heat vs. molecular movement) to first and third person, but if you try to replace it with the very same dichotomy the analogy breaks. The people I imagine are thinking about heat as a property of the objects themselves, so non-phenomenal, but using words like functional or physical would imply accepting molecular movement as the thing itself, which they are not doing. They are talking about the same thing as physical heat, but conceptionalize it differently.
Now, perhaps you are suggesting that you only have a physical-function conception of consciousness, and no essentially first-personal (phenomenal) concepts at all.
No, and I imagine you also have some degree of separation between the concepts of physical heat and molecular movement even though you know them to be the same, so you can e. g. make sense of cartoons with freeze rays fueled by “cold energy”. The fact that I understand “first-” and “third person consciousness” to be the same thing doesn’t mean I have no idea at all what people who (IMO confusedly) treat them as different things mean when they are talking about first person consciousness.
but using words like functional or physical would imply accepting molecular movement as the thing itself, which they are not doing.
Yes and no. It’s a superficially open question what microphysical phenomena fills the macro-level functional role used to define physical heat (causing state changes, making mercury expand in the thermometer, or whatever criteria we use to identify ‘heat’ in the world). So they can have a (transparently) functional concept of heat without immediately recognizing what fills the role. But once they have all the microphysical facts—the Laplacean demon, say—it would clearly be incoherent for them to continue to see a micro-macrophysical “gap” the way that we (putatively) find a physical-phenomenal gap.
(knowledge that molecular movement is sufficient to explain observable macro-phenomena was assumed so the first half of the reply does not apply)
But once they have all the microphysical facts—the Laplacean demon, say—it would clearly be incoherent for them to continue to see a micro-macrophysical “gap” the way that we (putatively) find a physical-phenomenal gap.
You and I would agree on that, but presumably they would disagree on being incoherent. And I see no important distinction between their claim to coherence and that of philosophical zombies, other than simplicity of the subject matter.
You can show that they’re incoherent by (i) explicating their macro-level functional conception of heat, and then (ii) showing how the micro functional facts entail the macro functional facts.
The challenge posed by the zombie argument is to get the physicalist to offer an analogous response. This requires either (i) explicating our concept of phenomenal consciousness in functional terms, or else (ii) showing how functional-physical facts can entail non-functional phenomenal facts (by which I mean, facts that are expressible using non-functional phenomenal concepts).
Do you think you can do one of these? If so, which one?
You can show that they’re incoherent by (i) explicating their macro-level functional conception of heat, and then (ii) showing how the micro functional facts entail the macro functional facts.
Okay, let’s imagine this. First, to explicate “macro functional facts”, we have the examples:
causing state changes, making mercury expand in the thermometer, or whatever criteria we use to identify ‘heat’ in the world
So, you try to show someone that jiggling around the molecules of mercury will cause the mercury to expand. How exactly would you do this? I’ll try to imagine it. You present them with some mercury. You lend them an instrument which lets them see the individual molecules of the mercury. Then you start jiggling the molecules directly by some means (demonic powers maybe), and the mercury expands. Or, alternatively, you apply what they recognize as heat to mercury, and you show them that the molecules are jiggling faster. So, in experience after experience, you show them that what they recognize as heat rises if and only if the molecules jiggle faster.
This is not mere observation of correlation, because you are manipulating the molecules and the mercury by one means or another rather than passively observing.
But what they can say to you is, “I accept that there seems to be some sort of very tight relationship between the jiggling and the heat, but this doesn’t mean that the jiggling is the heat. After all, we already know that there is a tight relationship between manipulations of the brain and conscious experiences, but that doesn’t disprove dualism.”
What could you say in response? Maybe: “if you jiggle the molecules, the molecules spread apart, i.e., the mercury expands.” They could reply, “you are assuming that the molecules are identical with the mercury. But all I see is nothing but a tight correlation between where the molecules are and where the mercury is—similar to the tight correlation between where the brain is and where the conscious mind finds itself, but that doesn’t disprove dualism.”
How do you force a reluctant person to accept the identification of certain macro facts with certain micro facts?
But of course, you don’t really have to, because when people see such strong correlations, their natural inclination is to stop seeing two things and start seeing one thing. They might even lose the ability to see two things—for example, when we look at the world with our two eyes, what we see is one image with depth, rather than two flat images (though we can see the individual images by closing one eye). So of course, someone who has experienced the correlation between a micro fact and macro fact will have no trouble merging them into one fact merely seen from two perspectives (micro versus macro).
In principle, the brain could be manipulated in all sorts of ways. Nobody would be willing to submit to arbitrary manipulations, but in principle it could be done, and someone who had undergone such manipulations might develop a strong identification with his physical brain.
You can show that they’re incoherent by (i) explicating their macro-level functional conception of heat, and then (ii) showing how the micro functional facts entail the macro functional facts.
They already agree on that, just like zombie postulators will (usually?) grant that a functional view will be sufficient to explain all outward signs of consciousness. Their postulated opinion that there is something more to the question is IMO only more transparently incoherent than the equivalent. If you were claiming that the functional view was insufficient to explain people writing about conscious experience that would mean not sharing the same incoherence.
For example, assume I stubbed by toe. From my first person perspective I feel pain. From a third person perspective a nerve signal is sent to the brain and causes various parts of the neural machinery to do things. If I look at what I call “pain” from my first person perspective I can discriminate various, but perhaps not all parts of the sensation. I can feel where it comes from, spatially, and that the part of my body it comes from is that toe. From a third person perspective this information must be encoded somewhere since the person can answer the corresponding questions, or simply point, and perhaps we can already tell form neuroimaging? From an evolutionary perspective it’s obvious why that information is present.
Back to first person, I strongly want it to stop. Also verifiable and explainable. I have difficulty averting my attention, find myself physically reacting in various ways unless I consciously stop it, I have pain related associations like the word “ouch” or the color red, and so on. Nothing I can observe first person except the base signal and baggage I can deduce to have a correlate third person stands out.
The signal itself seems uninteresting enough that I’m not sure if I would even notice if it was replaced with a different signal as long as all baggage was kept the same (and that didn’t imply my memories changed to match). I’m not even completely sure that I really perceive such a base signal and it’s not just the various types of baggage bleeding together. If such a base signal is there for me to perceive and is what made me write this it obviously also must also be part of the functional side. if it isn’t it doesn’t require any explanation.
still confused enough to ask … whether it’s metaphysically possible for an object with a lot of molecular movement to be cold anyway.
Not so fast! That is possible, and that was EY’s point here:
Suppose there was a glass of water, about which, initially, you knew only that its temperature was 72 degrees. Then, suddenly, Saint Laplace reveals to you the exact locations and velocities of all the atoms in the water. You now know perfectly the state of the water, so, by the information-theoretic definition of entropy, its entropy is zero. Does that make its thermodynamic entropy zero? Is the water colder, because we know more about it?
Ignoring quantumness for the moment, the answer is: Yes! Yes it is!
And then he gave the later example of the flywheel, which we see as cooler than a set of metal atoms with the same velocity profile but which is not constrained to move in a circle:
But the more important point: Suppose you’ve got an iron flywheel that’s spinning very rapidly. That’s definitely kinetic energy, so the average kinetic energy per molecule is high. Is it heat? That particular kinetic energy, of a spinning flywheel, doesn’t look to you like heat, because you know how to extract most of it as useful work, and leave behind something colder (that is, with less mean kinetic energy per degree of freedom).
I think it does. Richard was making the point that your analogy blurs an important distinction between phenomenal heat and physical heat (thereby regressing to the original dilemma).
And it turns out this is important even in the LW perspective: the physical facts about the molecular motion are not enough to determine how hot you experience it to be (i.e. the phenomenal heat); it’s also a function of how much you know about the molecular motion.
You are simply begging the question. For me philosophical zombies make exactly as much sense as cold objects that behave like hot objects in every way. I can even imagine someone accepting that molecular movement explains all observable heat phenomena, but still confused enough to ask where hot and cold come from, and whether it’s metaphysically possible for an object with a lot of molecular movement to be cold anyway. The only important difference between that sort of confusion and the whole philosophical zombie business in my eyes is that heat is a lot simpler so people are far, far less likely to be in that state of confusion.
This comment is unclear. I noted that out heat concepts are ambiguous, between what we can call physical heat (as defined by its causal-functional role) and phenomenal heat (the conscious sensations). Now you write:
Which concept of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ are you imagining this person to be employing? If the phenomenal one, then they are (in my view) correct to see a further issue here: this is simply the consciousness debate all over again. If the physical-functional concept, then they are transparently incoherent.
Now, perhaps you are suggesting that you only have a physical-function conception of consciousness, and no essentially first-personal (phenomenal) concepts at all. In that case, we are talking past each other, because you do not have the concepts necessary to understand what I am talking about.
You are over-extending the analogy. The heat case has an analogous dichotomy (heat vs. molecular movement) to first and third person, but if you try to replace it with the very same dichotomy the analogy breaks. The people I imagine are thinking about heat as a property of the objects themselves, so non-phenomenal, but using words like functional or physical would imply accepting molecular movement as the thing itself, which they are not doing. They are talking about the same thing as physical heat, but conceptionalize it differently.
No, and I imagine you also have some degree of separation between the concepts of physical heat and molecular movement even though you know them to be the same, so you can e. g. make sense of cartoons with freeze rays fueled by “cold energy”. The fact that I understand “first-” and “third person consciousness” to be the same thing doesn’t mean I have no idea at all what people who (IMO confusedly) treat them as different things mean when they are talking about first person consciousness.
Yes and no. It’s a superficially open question what microphysical phenomena fills the macro-level functional role used to define physical heat (causing state changes, making mercury expand in the thermometer, or whatever criteria we use to identify ‘heat’ in the world). So they can have a (transparently) functional concept of heat without immediately recognizing what fills the role. But once they have all the microphysical facts—the Laplacean demon, say—it would clearly be incoherent for them to continue to see a micro-macrophysical “gap” the way that we (putatively) find a physical-phenomenal gap.
(knowledge that molecular movement is sufficient to explain observable macro-phenomena was assumed so the first half of the reply does not apply)
You and I would agree on that, but presumably they would disagree on being incoherent. And I see no important distinction between their claim to coherence and that of philosophical zombies, other than simplicity of the subject matter.
You can show that they’re incoherent by (i) explicating their macro-level functional conception of heat, and then (ii) showing how the micro functional facts entail the macro functional facts.
The challenge posed by the zombie argument is to get the physicalist to offer an analogous response. This requires either (i) explicating our concept of phenomenal consciousness in functional terms, or else (ii) showing how functional-physical facts can entail non-functional phenomenal facts (by which I mean, facts that are expressible using non-functional phenomenal concepts).
Do you think you can do one of these? If so, which one?
Okay, let’s imagine this. First, to explicate “macro functional facts”, we have the examples:
So, you try to show someone that jiggling around the molecules of mercury will cause the mercury to expand. How exactly would you do this? I’ll try to imagine it. You present them with some mercury. You lend them an instrument which lets them see the individual molecules of the mercury. Then you start jiggling the molecules directly by some means (demonic powers maybe), and the mercury expands. Or, alternatively, you apply what they recognize as heat to mercury, and you show them that the molecules are jiggling faster. So, in experience after experience, you show them that what they recognize as heat rises if and only if the molecules jiggle faster.
This is not mere observation of correlation, because you are manipulating the molecules and the mercury by one means or another rather than passively observing.
But what they can say to you is, “I accept that there seems to be some sort of very tight relationship between the jiggling and the heat, but this doesn’t mean that the jiggling is the heat. After all, we already know that there is a tight relationship between manipulations of the brain and conscious experiences, but that doesn’t disprove dualism.”
What could you say in response? Maybe: “if you jiggle the molecules, the molecules spread apart, i.e., the mercury expands.” They could reply, “you are assuming that the molecules are identical with the mercury. But all I see is nothing but a tight correlation between where the molecules are and where the mercury is—similar to the tight correlation between where the brain is and where the conscious mind finds itself, but that doesn’t disprove dualism.”
How do you force a reluctant person to accept the identification of certain macro facts with certain micro facts?
But of course, you don’t really have to, because when people see such strong correlations, their natural inclination is to stop seeing two things and start seeing one thing. They might even lose the ability to see two things—for example, when we look at the world with our two eyes, what we see is one image with depth, rather than two flat images (though we can see the individual images by closing one eye). So of course, someone who has experienced the correlation between a micro fact and macro fact will have no trouble merging them into one fact merely seen from two perspectives (micro versus macro).
In principle, the brain could be manipulated in all sorts of ways. Nobody would be willing to submit to arbitrary manipulations, but in principle it could be done, and someone who had undergone such manipulations might develop a strong identification with his physical brain.
They already agree on that, just like zombie postulators will (usually?) grant that a functional view will be sufficient to explain all outward signs of consciousness. Their postulated opinion that there is something more to the question is IMO only more transparently incoherent than the equivalent. If you were claiming that the functional view was insufficient to explain people writing about conscious experience that would mean not sharing the same incoherence.
For example, assume I stubbed by toe. From my first person perspective I feel pain. From a third person perspective a nerve signal is sent to the brain and causes various parts of the neural machinery to do things. If I look at what I call “pain” from my first person perspective I can discriminate various, but perhaps not all parts of the sensation. I can feel where it comes from, spatially, and that the part of my body it comes from is that toe. From a third person perspective this information must be encoded somewhere since the person can answer the corresponding questions, or simply point, and perhaps we can already tell form neuroimaging? From an evolutionary perspective it’s obvious why that information is present.
Back to first person, I strongly want it to stop. Also verifiable and explainable. I have difficulty averting my attention, find myself physically reacting in various ways unless I consciously stop it, I have pain related associations like the word “ouch” or the color red, and so on. Nothing I can observe first person except the base signal and baggage I can deduce to have a correlate third person stands out.
The signal itself seems uninteresting enough that I’m not sure if I would even notice if it was replaced with a different signal as long as all baggage was kept the same (and that didn’t imply my memories changed to match). I’m not even completely sure that I really perceive such a base signal and it’s not just the various types of baggage bleeding together. If such a base signal is there for me to perceive and is what made me write this it obviously also must also be part of the functional side. if it isn’t it doesn’t require any explanation.
Not so fast! That is possible, and that was EY’s point here:
And then he gave the later example of the flywheel, which we see as cooler than a set of metal atoms with the same velocity profile but which is not constrained to move in a circle:
Doesn’t touch the point of the analogy though. Add “disordered” or something wherever appropriate.
I think it does. Richard was making the point that your analogy blurs an important distinction between phenomenal heat and physical heat (thereby regressing to the original dilemma).
And it turns out this is important even in the LW perspective: the physical facts about the molecular motion are not enough to determine how hot you experience it to be (i.e. the phenomenal heat); it’s also a function of how much you know about the molecular motion.