Okay, so what creates the feeling of consciousness in those philosophical zombies? Can we generate more of those circumstances which naturally create that feeling?
If my life is “ultimately” an illusion, how can I make this illusion last as long as possible?
[I]n a discussion of the current state of evidence for whether the universe is spatially finite or spatially infinite,[...] James D. Miller chided Robin Hanson: ‘Robin, you are suffering from overconfidence bias in assuming that the universe exists. Surely there is some chance that the universe is of size zero.’
To which I replied: ‘James, if the universe doesn’t exist, it would still be nice to know whether it’s an infinite or a finite universe that doesn’t exist.’
Ha! You think pulling that old ‘universe doesn’t exist’ trick will stop me? It won’t even slow me down!
It’s not that I’m ruling out the possibility that the universe doesn’t exist. It’s just that, even if nothing exists, I still want to understand the nothing as best I can. My curiosity doesn’t suddenly go away just because there’s no reality, you know!
Okay, so what creates the feeling of consciousness in those philosophical zombies? Can we generate more of those circumstances which naturally create that feeling?
If my life is “ultimately” an illusion, how can I make this illusion last as long as possible?
Eliezer: