Is a world with Newtonian gravity and non-elliptical orbits logically possible?
Is a world where PA proves ¬Con(PA) logically possible?
Is a world with p-zombies logically possible?
Too often, people confuse “I couldn’t find a contradiction in 5 minutes” with “there’s provably no contradiction, no matter how long you look”. The former is what philosophers seem to use routinely, while the latter is a very high standard. For example, our familiar axioms about the natural numbers provably cannot meet that standard, due to the incompleteness theorems. I’d be very surprised if Chalmers had an argument that showed p-zombies are logically possible in the latter sense.
“Chalmers argues that since such zombies are conceivable to us, they must therefore be logically possible. Since they are logically possible, then qualia and sentience are not fully explained by physical properties alone.”
This is shorthand for “in the two decades that Chalmers has been working on this problem, he has been defending the argument that...” You might look at his arguments and find them lacking, but he has spent much longer than five minutes on the problem.
OK.
Is a world with Newtonian gravity and non-elliptical orbits logically possible?
Is a world where PA proves ¬Con(PA) logically possible?
Is a world with p-zombies logically possible?
Too often, people confuse “I couldn’t find a contradiction in 5 minutes” with “there’s provably no contradiction, no matter how long you look”. The former is what philosophers seem to use routinely, while the latter is a very high standard. For example, our familiar axioms about the natural numbers provably cannot meet that standard, due to the incompleteness theorems. I’d be very surprised if Chalmers had an argument that showed p-zombies are logically possible in the latter sense.
This is shorthand for “in the two decades that Chalmers has been working on this problem, he has been defending the argument that...” You might look at his arguments and find them lacking, but he has spent much longer than five minutes on the problem.