Compare two people who are physically identical except for one thing which doesn’t change anything else micro or macro scale. Clearly, one of them is a p-zombie, because that one lacks qualia.
I still don’t understand what the difference is between someone who lacks consciousness but is otherwise identical to someone who has consciousness.
With actual humans, p-zombies are almost certainly impossible. But imagine a world in which humans aren’t controlled by their brains; the Zombie Fairy intervenes and makes them act as she predicts they would act. Now the Zombie Fairy is so good at her job that the people of this world experience controlling their own bodies; but in actuality, they have no effect on their actions (except by coincidence.) If one of their brains was somehow altered without the Fairy’s knowledge, they would discover their strange predicament (but be unable to tell anyone—they would live out their life as a silent observer.) If one of their brains was destroyed without the Fairy’s noticing, they would continue as as a lifeless puppet, indistinguishable from regular humans—a p-zombie.
Now, it could be argued that the Fairy—who is what is usually referred to as a Zombie Master—is herself conscious, and as such these zombies are not true p-zombies. But this should give you some idea of what people are imagining when they say “p-zombie”.
That scenario sounds identical to “everybody is a p-zombie”.
It is! Unless of course you happen to be one of the poor people who exist solely to grant said zombies qualia.
Is there also a perception fairy, since perceiving the zombie fairy’s influence doesn’t create any physical changes in brain state or behavior?
Perception proceeds as normal in this counterfactual world. Of course, this world is not necessarily identical to our world, depending on how obvious the Perception Fairy is.
Does “As normal” mean that noticing the effects of the zombie fairy results in electrochemical changes in the brain that are different from those which occur in the absence of noticing those effects?
For some reason I can understand it better if I think of a sentient computer with standard input devices as things that it considers “real”, and a debugger that reads and alters memory states at will, outside the loop of what the machine can know. Assuming that such a system could be self-aware in the same sense that I think I am, how would it respond if every time it asked a class of question, the answer was modified by ‘magic’?
Does “As normal” mean that noticing the effects of the zombie fairy results in electrochemical changes in the brain that are different from those which occur in the absence of noticing those effects?
...yes? How would one notice something without changing brain-state to reflect that?
For some reason I can understand it better if I think of a sentient computer with standard input devices as things that it considers “real”, and a debugger that reads and alters memory states at will, outside the loop of what the machine can know. Assuming that such a system could be self-aware in the same sense that I think I am, how would it respond if every time it asked a class of question, the answer was modified by ‘magic’?
I think you may have misunderstood. The fairy controls the bodies, but has perfectly predicted in advance what the human would have done. Thus whatever they try to do is simultaneously achieved by the fairy; but they have no effect on their bodies. The fairy doesn’t alter their brains at all. If something else did alter their brain, but for some reason the fairy didn’t notice and update her predictions, then they would become “out of sync” with their body.
Supposedly the argument works just as well as a counterfactual.
Compare two people who are physically identical except for one thing which doesn’t change anything else micro or macro scale. Clearly, one of them is a p-zombie, because that one lacks qualia.
I still don’t understand what the difference is between someone who lacks consciousness but is otherwise identical to someone who has consciousness.
With actual humans, p-zombies are almost certainly impossible. But imagine a world in which humans aren’t controlled by their brains; the Zombie Fairy intervenes and makes them act as she predicts they would act. Now the Zombie Fairy is so good at her job that the people of this world experience controlling their own bodies; but in actuality, they have no effect on their actions (except by coincidence.) If one of their brains was somehow altered without the Fairy’s knowledge, they would discover their strange predicament (but be unable to tell anyone—they would live out their life as a silent observer.) If one of their brains was destroyed without the Fairy’s noticing, they would continue as as a lifeless puppet, indistinguishable from regular humans—a p-zombie.
Now, it could be argued that the Fairy—who is what is usually referred to as a Zombie Master—is herself conscious, and as such these zombies are not true p-zombies. But this should give you some idea of what people are imagining when they say “p-zombie”.
That scenario sounds identical to “everybody is a p-zombie”.
Is there also a perception fairy, since perceiving the zombie fairy’s influence doesn’t create any physical changes in brain state or behavior?
It is! Unless of course you happen to be one of the poor people who exist solely to grant said zombies qualia.
Perception proceeds as normal in this counterfactual world. Of course, this world is not necessarily identical to our world, depending on how obvious the Perception Fairy is.
Does “As normal” mean that noticing the effects of the zombie fairy results in electrochemical changes in the brain that are different from those which occur in the absence of noticing those effects?
For some reason I can understand it better if I think of a sentient computer with standard input devices as things that it considers “real”, and a debugger that reads and alters memory states at will, outside the loop of what the machine can know. Assuming that such a system could be self-aware in the same sense that I think I am, how would it respond if every time it asked a class of question, the answer was modified by ‘magic’?
...yes? How would one notice something without changing brain-state to reflect that?
I think you may have misunderstood. The fairy controls the bodies, but has perfectly predicted in advance what the human would have done. Thus whatever they try to do is simultaneously achieved by the fairy; but they have no effect on their bodies. The fairy doesn’t alter their brains at all. If something else did alter their brain, but for some reason the fairy didn’t notice and update her predictions, then they would become “out of sync” with their body.
Brain state is in principle detectable. If the fairy changes brain state, the fairy is detectable by physical means and thus physical.
Oh, I see. Yes, the fairy is physical; the brains, however, could in principle be epiphenomenal (although they aren’t, in this example.)