In the zombie world, Ben Jones posts a comment on this blog, but he never notices what he is posting.
Um, no, this is wrong.
I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for this, but Chalmers himself has said that’s not the case. P-zombies behave exactly the same way as people with consciousness do in all ways, so zombie-Ben-Jones’ eyes pick up visual data, his brain contains a representation of what he has done and what he is seeing, and he could provide just as much of a reasoned and intelligent discussion of his positions as you’d otherwise expect.
You are not defending Chalmers’ actual hypothesis. You are defending a much more intuitively-appealing and defensible position (which as it happens is still wrong, but that’s another argument and will be had another day).
P-zombies will reason. P-zombies will claim to have ‘experiences’ (at least some of them will, anyway), and (some) will discuss how those experiences are not communicable and indescribable, etc. etc. They will not merely be identical to our crude human perceptions. They will not only be identical to the limits of our ability to measure. They will act precisely the same in all ways.
Chalmers argues that it is meaningful to postulate a property such entities would lack that does not affect causality in any way. Don’t call it ‘conscious experience’ if you’re hung up on that term—replace it with ‘fitzgoanth’ if you wish.
P-zombies behave identically in every way to people with fitzgoanth, except that they lack fitzgoanth, and no possible observation of how they act or how they are composed can lead someone to conclude that someone possesses or lacks fitzgoanth. Saying that someone has fitzgoanth does not lead to different conclusions than denying that someone has fitzgoath.
Um, no, this is wrong.
I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for this, but Chalmers himself has said that’s not the case. P-zombies behave exactly the same way as people with consciousness do in all ways, so zombie-Ben-Jones’ eyes pick up visual data, his brain contains a representation of what he has done and what he is seeing, and he could provide just as much of a reasoned and intelligent discussion of his positions as you’d otherwise expect.
You are not defending Chalmers’ actual hypothesis. You are defending a much more intuitively-appealing and defensible position (which as it happens is still wrong, but that’s another argument and will be had another day).
P-zombies will reason. P-zombies will claim to have ‘experiences’ (at least some of them will, anyway), and (some) will discuss how those experiences are not communicable and indescribable, etc. etc. They will not merely be identical to our crude human perceptions. They will not only be identical to the limits of our ability to measure. They will act precisely the same in all ways.
Chalmers argues that it is meaningful to postulate a property such entities would lack that does not affect causality in any way. Don’t call it ‘conscious experience’ if you’re hung up on that term—replace it with ‘fitzgoanth’ if you wish.
P-zombies behave identically in every way to people with fitzgoanth, except that they lack fitzgoanth, and no possible observation of how they act or how they are composed can lead someone to conclude that someone possesses or lacks fitzgoanth. Saying that someone has fitzgoanth does not lead to different conclusions than denying that someone has fitzgoath.