The epiphenomenal homunculus theory claims that there’s nothing but p-zombies, so there are no conscious beings for them to be functionally equivalent to. After all, as the alien that has just materialised on my monitor has pointed out to me, no humans have zardlequeep (approximate transcription), and they don’t go around insisting that they do. They don’t even have the concept to talk about.
The theory that there is nothing but zombies runs into the difficulty of explaining why many of them would believe they are non-zombies. The standard p-zombie argument, that you can have qualia-less functional duplicates of non-zombies does not have that problem.
The theory that there is nothing but zombies runs into the much bigger difficulty of explaining to myself why I’m a zombie. When I poke myself with a needle, I sure as hell have the qualia of pain.
And don’t tell me it’s an illusion—any illusion is a qualia by itself.
The standard p-zombie argument still has a problem explaining why p-zombies claim to be conscious. It leaves no role for consciousness in explaining why conscious humans talk of being conscious. It’s a short road (for a philosopher) to then argue that consciousness plays no role, and we’re back with consciousness as either an epiphenomenon or non-existent, and the problem of why—especially when consciousness is conceded to exist, but cause nothing—the non-conscious system claims to be conscious.
Even worse, the question of how the word “conscious” can possibly even refer to this thing that is claimed to be epiphenomenal, since the word can’t have been invented in response to the existence or observations of consciousness (since there aren’t any observations). And in fact there is nothing to allow a human to distinguish between this thing, and every other thing that has never been observed, so in a way the claim that a person is “conscious” is perfectly empty.
ETA: Well, of course one can argue that it is defined intensionally, like “a unicorn is a horse with a single horn extending from its head, and [various magical properties]” which does define a meaningful predicate even if a unicorn has never been seen. But in that case any human’s claim to have a consciousness is perfectly evidence-free, since there are no observations of it with which to verify that it (to the extent that you can even refer to a particular unobservable thing) has the relevant properties.
The standard p-zombie argument still has a problem explaining why p-zombies claim to be conscious. It leaves no role for consciousness in explaining why conscious humans talk of being conscious.
Yes. Thats the standard epiphenomenalism objection.
. It’s a short road (for a philosopher) to then argue that consciousness plays no role,
.> How would a non-conscious entity, a p-zombie, come to talk about consciousness?
By functional equivalence. A zombie Chalmers is bound to will utter sentences asserting its possession of qualia, a zombie Dennett will utter sentences denying the same.
The only getout is to claim that it is not really talking at all.
The epiphenomenal homunculus theory claims that there’s nothing but p-zombies, so there are no conscious beings for them to be functionally equivalent to. After all, as the alien that has just materialised on my monitor has pointed out to me, no humans have zardlequeep (approximate transcription), and they don’t go around insisting that they do. They don’t even have the concept to talk about.
The theory that there is nothing but zombies runs into the difficulty of explaining why many of them would believe they are non-zombies. The standard p-zombie argument, that you can have qualia-less functional duplicates of non-zombies does not have that problem.
The theory that there is nothing but zombies runs into the much bigger difficulty of explaining to myself why I’m a zombie. When I poke myself with a needle, I sure as hell have the qualia of pain.
And don’t tell me it’s an illusion—any illusion is a qualia by itself.
Don’t tell me tell Dennett
The standard p-zombie argument still has a problem explaining why p-zombies claim to be conscious. It leaves no role for consciousness in explaining why conscious humans talk of being conscious. It’s a short road (for a philosopher) to then argue that consciousness plays no role, and we’re back with consciousness as either an epiphenomenon or non-existent, and the problem of why—especially when consciousness is conceded to exist, but cause nothing—the non-conscious system claims to be conscious.
Even worse, the question of how the word “conscious” can possibly even refer to this thing that is claimed to be epiphenomenal, since the word can’t have been invented in response to the existence or observations of consciousness (since there aren’t any observations). And in fact there is nothing to allow a human to distinguish between this thing, and every other thing that has never been observed, so in a way the claim that a person is “conscious” is perfectly empty.
ETA: Well, of course one can argue that it is defined intensionally, like “a unicorn is a horse with a single horn extending from its head, and [various magical properties]” which does define a meaningful predicate even if a unicorn has never been seen. But in that case any human’s claim to have a consciousness is perfectly evidence-free, since there are no observations of it with which to verify that it (to the extent that you can even refer to a particular unobservable thing) has the relevant properties.
Yes. Thats the standard epiphenomenalism objection.
Often a bit too short.