We can suggest a Weak Zombie Argument: It is logically possible to have a universe where all qualia of red and green are inverted in the minds of its inhabitants, while all physical things remain the same. This argument supports epiphenomenalism as well as the previous zombie argument but cannot be as easily disproved.
This is because it breaks down the idea of qualia into two parts: the functional aspect and the qualitative aspect. Functionally, all types of “red” are the same and are used to represent red color in the mind.
Zombies are not possible because something is needed to represent red in their minds. However, the most interesting qualitative aspect of that “something” is still arbitrary and doesn’t have any causal effects.
I think we can use the same method Eliezer applied to the regular epiphenomenalist Zombie argument to deal with this, weaker one.
Whether your mind interpret certain colour in a certain way actually have casual effects on the world. Namely, things that appear beautiful to you in our world may not appear beautiful to your qualia inversed counterpart. Which naturally affects your behaviour: whether you look at a certain object more, whether you buy a certain object and so on.
This is even more obvious for people with selective colour blindness. Suppose your mind is unable to distinguish between qualia of blueness and redness. And suppose there are three objects: A is red, B is blue and C is green. In our world you can’t distinguish between objects A and B. But in the qualia inversed world you wouldn’t be able to distinguish between objects B and C.
And if you try to switch to substance dualist version—all the reasoning from this post still stands.
We can suggest a Weak Zombie Argument: It is logically possible to have a universe where all qualia of red and green are inverted in the minds of its inhabitants, while all physical things remain the same. This argument supports epiphenomenalism as well as the previous zombie argument but cannot be as easily disproved.
This is because it breaks down the idea of qualia into two parts: the functional aspect and the qualitative aspect. Functionally, all types of “red” are the same and are used to represent red color in the mind.
Zombies are not possible because something is needed to represent red in their minds. However, the most interesting qualitative aspect of that “something” is still arbitrary and doesn’t have any causal effects.
I think we can use the same method Eliezer applied to the regular epiphenomenalist Zombie argument to deal with this, weaker one.
Whether your mind interpret certain colour in a certain way actually have casual effects on the world. Namely, things that appear beautiful to you in our world may not appear beautiful to your qualia inversed counterpart. Which naturally affects your behaviour: whether you look at a certain object more, whether you buy a certain object and so on.
This is even more obvious for people with selective colour blindness. Suppose your mind is unable to distinguish between qualia of blueness and redness. And suppose there are three objects: A is red, B is blue and C is green. In our world you can’t distinguish between objects A and B. But in the qualia inversed world you wouldn’t be able to distinguish between objects B and C.
And if you try to switch to substance dualist version—all the reasoning from this post still stands.