Personally I think it’s silly as hell. Qualia is obviously a biological component of experience… Not some weird thing that science will never be able to put in to words.
I’ve been listening to a lot of psychology podcasts lately and for some reason people seem obsessed with the idea despite you needing to make the same logical leaps to believe it as any sort of mysticism… Maybe I am just tripping idk
Evolution isn’t teleological, so random shit just happens. If that mutation is beneficial it would lead to increased prosperity for the creature with said mutation. Some creature down the line developed eyes and it helped them get their fuck on and that’s why we have consciousness.
Butterflies do fine without consciousness, but humans do a lot better (proof hexbear.net)
I legitimately cannot imagine a p zombie that would do okay in the modern world. You need consciousness to adapt.
Yeah, hence my use of the term spandrel. Not all mutations have to have a selective benefit to persist, but given that consciousness has (apparently) arisen, at least to some degree, multiple times, we can conclude that it may have arisen from something that had direct selective benefit.
This is a teleological assumption because there are critters out there with eyes but not any apparent consciousness, so there’s no reason to assume that the subjective experience of “redness” is an inevitable consequence of vision development.
Butterflies have been around doing their thing for considerably longer than humans and, at the rate we’re going, will probably outlive us, so I think you may be using an anthropocentric set of scoring criteria.
The nature of a p zombie is such that if one existed, you’d have no way of knowing if it was one (but you might have a strong suspicion; looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg). The second part is clearly wrong. Behavioral adaptations are observable in creatures as simple as nematodes, so, while a nematode will probably never be able to experience the glories of Microsoft Excel, there’s nothing saying that consciousness is a requirement for remaining extant - in terms of both numbers and biomass, nematodes have us handily beat. In a human example, Peter Watts references the phenomenon blindsight in his novel of the same name; some folks lose access to vision processing and are functionally blind, but their brains are still capable of responding to visual input. All I think we can currently say is that human-level complex behavior does not appear to be possible without consciousness, but that take might be challenged by future developments.
When I say I don’t think they can exist I mean I don’t think they can exist in our actual reality. The thought experiment is usually that someone is literally a 1:1 copy of you but without consciousness: how do you figure out they’re a zombie. My argument is that it is literally physically impossible to have my 1:1 brain and not have consciousness, as consciousness is derived from your brains processees.
When I say a p zombie could not exist because they need to adapt I am talking about a human p zombie in a modern city. They literally could not function. They would very quickly die.
And to use your example of “why consciousness”. The p zombie paints the picture. Put a p zombie in a busy street in a busy city and they get hit by a car and die. The exact same person with consciousness can interpret the situation and avoid getting ran over. That’s why consciousness came to be evolutionarily.
Imagining a p zombie is like imagining a computer that is supposedly running without an operating system… The operating system IS the computer… It can’t run
That’s not an “argument”, that’s literally the most text book example of begging the question that I can imagine.
They are literally behaviorally identical to a regular person. Jesus fucking Christ, this is such Reddit tier pseudo intellectualism. "I never bothered to actually comprehend the argument, but it’s dumb and irrational anyway. Fucking no investigation, no write to speak, you self important chud
No. Imagining a p zombie is like imagining a computer that isn’t conscious but still works. You know, the thing nobody has any problem doing!
How? Your behavior is literally dictated by how hard I hit you five minutes ago. Is that P Zombie the same as then? Or now?
A P Zombie is not real. Its anime shit. I am DETERMINED BY MY PAST, yet a ZOMBIE with no SEMBLANCE of my past determines the same thing? That doesn’t make sense.
Read the paper.
Read the fucking paper
I read the paper. Literally nonsense. Even Chalmers himself argues that Zombie Chalmers would be making the exact same argument as Non Zombie Chalmers, so the actual question is what are we asking? Can I imagine a universe with P Zombies? Sure. I can imagine an ice cube that is hot. I can imagine a box that contains itself. Doesn’t mean its possible or relevant to the conversation at all. What about this universe? Are we arguing there are P Zombies in this universe? If so, how? Are we simply arguing that consciousness may exist outside of the physical realm? If so, explain the mechanism that allows it to interact with the physical realm and cause physical effects on our brains.
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I don’t think you’re honoring the thought experiment as originally proposed, which stipulated that p zombies are behaviorally identical to ordinary humans, so they would react to and avoid the car. Even without that stipulation, we should assume that p zombies would still exhibit reflexive behavior, given that people can react to danger without first consciously processing it. This gets us back to my original observation that a lot of non-human animals are able to exhibit complex behaviors without apparently having consciousness, so the question is still whether the conscious experience is actually doing something or if it’s just a byproduct of certain cognitive processes.
Thats what I am saying: they can’t. The P-Zombie you have invented in this thought experiment is question begging. We cannot have a behaviorally identical Pzombie because humans are driven by consciousness, which P-Zombies are incapable of. Category error. An unconscious human gets hit by a car if they’re in the middle of the road.
This question only works if you believe in the P-Zombie. Its a non-starter if you don’t.
Its the same problem I have with Mary’s Room. If Mary has all knowledge of color she can perfectly imagine that color in her mind, because I am capable of doing so with my incredibly small knowledge of color… to say Mary would “learn something new” when she sees color for the first time is a category error. We are making semantic mistakes over the definition of “knowledge”, not asking anything truly groundbreaking.
I didn’t come up with the idea; blame David Chalmers. All I was saying that is that if you want to use p zombies as they were proposed, you have to accept the conceit that they’re behaviorally identical to regular humans. If you don’t think it’s possible for p zombies to exist, that’s fine; I never suggested they were a thing (except you, Mark Zuckerberg). But to say that they can’t exist because you need consciousness in order to exhibit human qualities is also question-begging, or potentially argument from incredulity depending on how you’re framing it.
You’re conflating two definitions of “conscious” here, “awake” and “capable of subjective experience,” while I’m assuming the p-zombie argument addresses only the latter. Awake humans are capable of (and routinely engage in) behaviors that are not consciously driven. I’ve provided multiple counter-examples, including blindsight and ordinary reflexes. A human who is not consciously aware of a car can still avoid a car, it’s demonstrable.
Is it your contention that all animals are conscious, then?
I believe the original framing was that if Mary had knowledge of the physical properties of color but has never experienced seeing red, she won’t be able to know the sensation of seeing red until she’s actually exposed to red light. Which seems fine to me. You can imagine red because you have prior experience of the color red, so we can conclude that the experience of redness is independent of your knowledge of what causes redness. Likewise, I could give you a wavelength of light (say, 375 nm) and you’ll probably be unable to imagine what it looks like without seeing it first (or at all, because 375 is in the UV range). I think the argument becomes silly when it’s claimed to be incompatible with a standard materialist conclusion that all subjective experience has a physical basis. But it also seems like it’s beside the point here - the question isn’t whether the sensation of redness exists (I thought we were aligned on that), it’s whether being able to experience the sensation of redness is somehow essential to something, or if it’s a byproduct of something else. I’m just questioning your conclusion that conscious experience has a demonstrable evolutionary benefit.
But not all at the same level of interior complexity. I think we can get a good estimate of that complexity by studying their cognition and behavior in comparison to ours.
I feel like there has to be some sort of cutoff - surely there’s a certain number of neurons where all you have is basic stimulus/response behavior, but I’ll confess to not knowing what it’s like to be a nematode.
But this is a semantic argument of what “Mary Had Knowledge” means, not what qualia is… When you say knowledge I am including the physical characteristics you have ascertained through your subjective experience. Defining knowledge otherwise seems tricky. To say Mary has knowledge of the color of red is basically saying Mary can recreate your memory of the color red. I don’t see how you can recreate a memory without knowledge of what that memory contains, so that at least is where my logic is flowing. Red is an entirely subjective definition depending on your historic eyes’ cones and your historic position in spacetime.
I vaguely get what you are saying: put a preying mantis’ brain in a human and they could likely react to the moving car… most animals on the planet earth do not react properly to a speeding car. I don’t think a P Zombie could ever have this conversation. Is that a good distinction?
Yeah I just dont think P Zombies actual make sense as proposed. I don’t think you can get a human in my exact form that exhibits the behaviors of a preying mantis. I think that my form is directly responsible for my behavior.
No, it’s a terrible destination, because all you’ve done is articulate an inconsistent position.
Maybe you should actually make the smallest effort to understand what is being proposed, rather just assuming your some big smart boy who automatically knows better than all the dumb-dumb professional philosophers.
You’re proposing an entity with my exact form that does not contain my exact mind state. That cannot exist. That is a category error. You are assigning a string variable to fucking integer.
You need to define what you mean by a P Zombie exactly like me that does not possess consciousness. What does that mean? I think consciousness is in the brain. Define how its not? Even if your argument is NOT a category error, what you are relaying to me is a category error. Should be solvable through syntax alone.
Yeah, it seems like semantics really get in the way of serious consideration of the example, and I don’t really think it leads anywhere interesting.
I’m not sure what I can say here other than it isn’t necessary to consider P zombies as an argument, but there should be a little bit of willingness to ask what if rather than resorting to intuition to dismiss them. The idea should be to approach this from a position of intellectual curiosity - if it were possible to have a creature that resembled a human in all respects except for the fact that it lacked subjectivity, would we be able to tell the difference? What would we need to know to tell? It doesn’t seem sufficient to conclude that certain behaviors are inherent properties of “usness” simply on the basis of intuition, because neuroscience has found that a lot of behaviors that seem conscious and volitional may not, in fact, be so.
Talking strictly in terms of what p zombies can and cannot do feels a bit like asking whether unicorns would be able to fart rainbows if they existed. Do you want them to?
To me, entertaining the thought of a P Zombie is like asking me whether a unicorn can fart: sure why not but does that actually provide any utility to the conversation?
My belief is that consciousness is a result of your physical state, so asking me to make something with my physical state that isn’t conscious is like asking me to imagine a computer that doesn’t have a processor. That can’t be. A computer is defined by its relationship to the processor!
How do we dissect a P Zombie that is fake conscious? How do we even suspect it’s a P Zombie? Is the P Zombie dead after I take it’s brain out?
📽️
Literally question begging.
Thought terminating cliche.
This is so fucking stupid. So if a robot can avoid traffic, it’s conscious then.
Or, you know, if you don’t believe literally all animals, plants, and computers are conscious.
Name one color you’ve never seen but can perfectly imagine.
Whatever Mantis Shrimp got going on.
Did it spontaneously avoid traffic through a means of self preservation? If so, maybe. If not, and it was programmed to do so, we have a direct explanation as to why it wasn’t.
That’s not remotely the name of a color you’ve never seen but can perfectly imagine. Are you illiterate?
As much as a human does. Unless you’re asserting the existence of a non-physical soul that transcends the laws of cause and effect.
What do mean “maybe”? Yes or No?
…
Oh. You literally are proposing that humans have a soul that transcends cause and effect and biological programming.
Biological programming dictates “dont die, and fuck*”. My maybe is with the asterisk that avoiding that the biological imperative within the p zombie tells the P Zombie (unconsciously?) that ignoring the car leads to fucking.
You asked me to describe a color. I described a mechanism to achieve said color. Maybe its my CompSci brain but the Function returns the same value. Am I illiterate? I have had 9 alcoholic beverages.
And yet you’ve already defined being part of an evolutionary dynamic as the thing that causes consciousness; literally implying that evolution causes teleology in the first place
Well that’s the most unjustified leap of logic I’ve ever seen.
And ants do a lot better still. Are ants conscious? Is algae conscious? How are you even defining “better” here without makeing a teleological argument?
The whole bloody point of the p-zombie is that it’s behaviour is identical to a regular person! It would by definition do exactly the same as anyone else. Maybe you should actually make a token fucking effort to understand an argument before you arrogantly dismiss it.
Source: it came to me in a cryptic dream. So all. Adaptive systems are conscious? Computers are conscious? Rivers are conscious?
Evolution furthers complexity, and furthering complexity seems like a universal constant as we have theoretically started from the neutral point of “a fuck load of useless heat” and got here.
A creature with eyes has an evolutionary advantage over one that doesn’t as they can interpret new stimuli. A creature with consciousness can do the same thing by interpreting theoretical stimuli.
Historical Materalism applied to an evolutionary timeline.
Time self selects for the superior by nature of it being superior. Superiority is only relevant when you apply temporality. You could theoretically say time is teleological but like… idk
So does geology. So does stellar fusion. So does planet formation.
Lol. And you were seriously trying to claim you had a masters in physics. You’re literally now setting that the second law of thermodynamics is wrong
Literally the opposite of what happened.
I like how you quoted me even though you clearly didn’t read what I said.
No it doesn’t. This is spiritual mumbojumbo
Incoherent.
hey man, I am too drunk, too incorherent. Sorry for maybe questioning your world view? Sirry for being incogerebt, Wghat I possess is surely not useful long term an d activerly detrimnetal. The fact that I can acknowledge that while drunk maybe proves the point? Maybe the fact that I can prove the point while drunk proves the point that what we are experiencing (what I consider to be consciousness)is maytbe inhorent is PROOF that consciousness isnt real. Its all real time. Anyways I am sorry. either to my past self for proving me wrong, or my current self for arguing with myself