Talk:Philosophical zombie/Archive 1

Huh?

This is just about the most confusing thing I have ever read. I'm struggling to get even a single paragraph of this article to make sense to me. This is so heavy on philosophic jargon and mumbo-jumbo that it's impossible for a layman to understand. Could someone please simplify the whole mess? 72.178.131.225 02:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Expansion & clean up

I recently expanded the article a bit. I added some references and more detailed info on the arguments, the proponents, and the context of use. I think this article could really use some improvement. Particularly:

• More details about how the zombie arguments are supposed to work (Chalmers's, in particular).
• More details on criticisms, including Dennett's and Nagel's (his later stuff).

- Jaymay 10:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Misc

Why is Asperger's linked to from here? Is there a hypothesis that people with Asperger's are zombies? 207.69.13.189 23:16, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Removed. Przepla 21:54, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Which religions make the claim that zombies don't possess souls or go to an afterlife? It seems unlikely that all religions take the same position with respect to philosophical zombies, so I've changed it to "some religions," but that's not really specific enough. Factitious July 1, 2005 01:23 (UTC)

I went ahead and dropped that paragraph, since it confuses philosophy with theology and is therefore irrelevant. I also added more material on who supports these ideas, but do you think a few quotes would help, too? 07:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

"David Chalmers and Daniel Dennett are, respectively, well-known proponents and opponents of the possibility of philosophical zombies." I changed this by removing the "respective" and the proponent bit. Chalmers is not a proponent of philosophical zombies as far I am concerned, although he expresses a great interest in them (as we all should). He argues against absent qualia in his paper "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia" (Chalmers, Conscious Experience, 1995). In fact, in the Dennett paper, linked on this page, he is explicitly siding with Chalmers. Edward Grefenstette 12:30, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Critique for concept of article

I think the article is biased towards the acceptance of using the term "philosophical zombie" as if there is an obvious scale of measurement for something that can hardly be settled what is (sentience/intelligence/sapience/whatever). There should be a distinction between an explanation of the historical use of the term "philosophical zombie" and the article's willingness to accept the hypothesis as describing something actual. I personally think that, besides the seemingly interesting logical conclusions regarding behaviourism and physicalism, the term is largely used in a debate context to measure the competitive intellects of people. Doc Daneeka 01:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, I suggest removing all references to "p-zombies". Using own jargon in articles might either make it harder for the reader to understand (due to frequent use that doesn't stick in the reader's memory) or a false familiarity suggesting that the abbreviated term (sometimes used in very limited social circles or by the author entirely for the ease of writing) is very common. Doc Daneeka 01:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, the Criticism isn't worth much:

Daniel Dennett is a well-known opponent of the possibility of philosophical zombies; he coined the term zimboes to argue that the idea of a philosophical zombie is incoherent—see Dennett (1995) and (1999), for example. Dennett states: "Philosophers ought to have dropped the zombie like a hot potato, but since they persist in their embrace, this gives me a golden opportunity to focus attention on the most seductive error in current thinking." (grabbed Aug 24th 2006)

It basically boils down to "Daniel Dennett doesn't like PZs, so he calls them zimboes. In the years 1995 and 1999 he wrote that the ideas aren't coherent. He thinks that philosophers should quit the idea because it sucks. Hot potato. People make errors in thinking." All this comment does is suggest that there is criticism without providing any. I'd like to come with mine, but I think it's mostly a beef with how the mentality of proponents of the term seem to try to identify as many variations of "zombies" as possible rather than explain why the subject is relevant at all. It could for example say more general things such as how the thought experiment/hypothesis aims to be a comparison model between various philosophies that try to explain what our conciousness is about. Doc Daneeka 01:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Hope I made sense. Cheers. Doc Daneeka 01:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the use of "p-zombie" is non-standard and, thus, not a great idea. "Philosophical zombie" isn't even standard. Philosophers always just write "zombie". Perhaps we could just state in the intro paragraph that from that point on just "zombie" will be used in the article; perhaps even put a note about how that's how it's used in the literature.

However, about the article's bias and discussion of the term: This article surely needs a lot of work. And it may be biased only by not having good info on critiques. But to describe the notion of a zombie one does have to describe what its proponents think it is, which means discussing how they think it's a genuine possible scenario/being. And, I'm not sure what you mean by: "the term is largely used in a debate context to measure the competitive intellects of people." The term is used in philosophy to talk about the description of a being or scenario and whether it is a possible (not actual) one. So, the article definitely needs a lot of work, but don't think that the notion of a zombie can be adequately explicated without explaining what it's supposed to be, even though the whole notion of consciousness is highly controversial. - Jaymay 18:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Dreams

"The perception of people within our dreams as "real" gives credence to the idea that we may not be able to distinguish philsophical zombies from real people.

Or it might just mean that a lot of our critical faculties are suspended during dreaming.

The alternative view is that characters within our dreams are not p-zombies but multiple representations of ourselves. In this sense when we dream and interact with other people we are merely having an internal conversation with our own min"

Or maybe they are about as real as cartoon characters.

"The perception that we are distinct from other characters when dreaming is merely our mind playing tricks on us, when in fact we are all the characters since every element within our dreams is the result of our neurons firing. This leads to the question of whether what we believe to be philosophical zombies could be no more than manifestations of a higher "self" playing all the roles simultaneousl"y.

Or maybe not.

This whole passage is a bunch of vague, inconclusive speculation. In every case, simpler answers are available.1Z 23:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this real?

I saw a write up on what looked to be an old web page that is almost verbatim to what is written here.

http://consc.net/zombies.html

Im trying to decide if this page is created in a part of a larger joke or something. It feels like it is written in a very cryptic manner. 68.226.118.115 09:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer this whole article/concept were a joke, but if you read the book I Am a Strange Loop (ISBN 0-465-03078-5) (2007) by Douglas Hofstadter you will learn that it is very much not a joke. The basic concept is so weird that it would be hard to write about it in a way that did not at first look like a joke.

The core issue here is, two possible views of reality:

1) Any complex thinking being that claims in every way to be having experiences really is having those experiences -- consciousness is an unavoidable direct result of complex capacity. Or:

2) It is possible, at least in principle, to totally and absolutely simulate the full complex capacity of beings like us, with absolutely no way to tell the difference, and yet have totally "fake" beings, that claim to be conscious, in every way just like us -- but in fact there is no really conscious feeling inside, even though there is totally no way to tell.

It is a hard choice, and for now just weird philosophy, but I would have to vote for 1. After AI succeeds, and we deal with truly alien beings in daily life, society will have to choose which view to take.

There is also choice 3) -- that we are all actually zombies, and that none of us are actually have real conscious experiences, even though some or all of us may be claiming/simulating such experiences, and claiming to believe such -- that we are all somehow just pretending to be having the actual experience that we exist?-69.87.199.131 21:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I know that I am not a philosophical zombie. However, if I was a philosophical zombie, then I would still claim not to be one. If such things as philosophical zombies could exist, then perhaps I am the only person who has consciousness. Or, perhaps you are the only one, if I was a philisophical zombie insisting that I was not one.--RLent (talk) 15:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I will partly go along with choice 1. I don't know that consciousness necessarily is a direct result of complexity, but if something behaves just like a person with consciousness, I would have to say that it is conscious. It just seems exceedingly unlikely that there is something which causes consciousness that makes no difference and is optional. If that were the case, then why would my consciousness correspond to what my body is doing? I believe that it is in principle possible to fake consciousness, but such an endeavor would be of near infinite complexity, and while the simulation's behavior might be identical to a humans, it would clearly not be a human brain.--RLent (talk) 15:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Behavioral and neurological zombies

I can't tell the difference. A behavioural zombie is supposed to "[be] behaviorally indistinguishable from a human and yet [have] no conscious experience" whereas a neurological zombie "has a human brain and is otherwise physically indistinguishable from a human; nevertheless, it has no conscious experience." Is a neurological zombie a specific kind of behavioural zombie, implying that behavioural zombies who are not neurological zombies are physically distinguishable from ordinary human beings? Bbi5291 20:23, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

A behavioral zombie is one which behaves like a human, but lacks conscious experience. A robot could be a behavioral zombie. Even if we made a robot that acted like and had an exterior resemblance to a human, we could still open it up and see the difference. If neurological zombies could exist, we could not see the difference.--RLent (talk) 19:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Error

The whole article is based on a mistake. A zombie does not lack sensation or perception. Zombies can perceive objects perfectly and clearly. The characteristic that zombies lack is will. They have no will of their own. Their actions are controlled by another person, a person who imposes his/her will on the zombie. Zombies are automata who are obedient to another person's will or desire.Lestrade (talk) 01:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

This merely pushes the argument for the p-zombies lack of consiousness one level away. The putative person or mechanism whose will informs the zombies actions is therefore not a p-zombie. The original argument never posits any realistic mechanism that could make the p-zombies bahave in exactly the way the arguer states; "Indistinguishable from normal human beings." I would call this a "Solipsistic Fallacy" since the p-zombie adherent has no way of proving that they, themselves, are not p-zombies.[[User: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryukurai (talk • contribs) 00:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The main point that I am making is that zombies perceive external objects in their environment and therefore possess complete perception and understanding. What they do not possess is a will of their own. This point has been completely missed or misinterpreted in the Wikipedia article.Lestrade (talk) 04:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

You're thinking of a zombie in the usual conception, philosophical zombies are an entirely different concept.--RLent (talk) 15:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Typical philosophical ambiguity: using one word to designate more than one concept. This makes for poor communication. But all of the types of zombies listed in the article are said to lack conscious experience. This is the error. Zombies do not lack conscious experience. Zombies clearly perceive external objects. What they lack is their own will. They are motivated by a will that is other than their own.Lestrade (talk) 17:14, 20 August 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

No, philosophical zombies really are posited to lack conscious experience. Will generally doesn't factor into the scenario at all. Perhaps it was a poor decision for philosophers to name this concept a 'philosophical zombie', but that's the name we have. The article won't be influenced by any facts about mystical zombies. ^L_Wizard @ 06:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Philosophers typically are not ambiguous, philosophers tend to be quite careful to define exactly what they mean when they use a term. Although zombie is used in a different sense than the usual creature from the movies, the term "philosophical zombie" is well-defined.--RLent (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The name "zombie" has been misapplied. If a philosopher wanted to posit the existence of a being that acts as if it has sensation and perception but actually lacks those attributes, then another name should have been used. The concept of a philosophical zombie is an absurdity because it is self–contradictory. In order to know when to act as if it has sensation and perceptual knowledge, the being must already have those qualities. Therefore it must both have and not have sensation and understanding at the same time. The name "zombie" designates a being that has no will of its own but has sensation and perception. A philosopher displays gross ignorance by using the name "zombie" to signify the concept of a being that both has and doesn't have sensation and perception at one time. This Wikipedia article perpetuates this erroneous absurdity.Lestrade (talk) 12:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Attempt at clarification

For those having trouble understanding this concept:

It's common to think about robots and computer programs as "philosophical zombies". You can go right now to any of various websites and have a "conversation" with a chatbot. Currently, their conversational skills aren't that great, but frankly, for an assemblage of electronic components, they aren't bad either. However, such programs are just respoding automatically to patterns of input -- nobody who knows anything about this subject imagines that these programs have any subjective conscious experience. There's nobody "in there". We can imagine that in another ten or twenty years such programs may be able to carry on a complex coherent human-seeming conversation (cf Turing Test), however, they may be doing so simply by a more complex application of the automatic responses we see now -- still "nobody in there".

I've talked to living humans before and had the feeling that I was talking to a body with "nobody in there". All a chatbot needs in order to "feel" things is a variable for a given feeling, and code to respond to those variables. Then technically the chatbot can be said to feel a certain way (angry, sad, surprised), as evidenced by its responses. Or, in terms of philosophical zombies, it acts as if it feels a certain way.

Similarly, we could imagine a robot that walks around, carries things, says "Ouch!" when it stumbles, etc. (For example, the droids in Star Wars, the "mecha" robots in the movie Artificial Intelligence: A.I.) However, again, this robot might not be subjectively conscious -- it might just be responding automatically to inputs, even to the point of (falsely) claiming that it really is subjectively conscious when asked!

The philosophers are debating (A) Whether such perfect imitation of consciousness -- but without actual consciousness -- is possible, and (B) If we accept that this is hypothetically possible, then how can we know that the people around us, who seem to be subjectively conscious and claim to be subjectively conscious really are subjectively conscious?

-- Writtenonsand (talk) 02:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If we assert that philosophical zombies could exist, and there is no way to distinguish one from a human with conscious experience, then we have no reason to assume that anyone other than ourselves is conscious. But the idea that there is no way to make such a distinction doesn't seem to add up. Imagine that we have a flashlight which is emitting light. Then we try to imagine a flashlight which is exactly identical and in the exact same environment, except it is not emitting light. But this could not be, there would have to be a physical explanation for why one flashlight was emitting light.--RLent (talk) 20:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Brains

Do they eat them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.237.4.125 (talk) 15:31, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

No, they philosophize about them.

Images of Chalmers and Dennett

I would like to remove the pictures of Chalmers and Dennett from the article. They don't illustrate the concept of a philosophical zombie, nor do they illustrate anything about their respective views on the subject. Anyone have any comments or objections? Imyourfoot (talk) 00:12, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done so. Imyourfoot (talk) 02:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

edit request: main article hatlink

{{edit semi-protected}}

Please place

{{main|Zombie arguments}}

under the heading of section Philosophical zombie#Zombie arguments. Thank you. (In a next step, the section should probably be reduced to a concise summary, but first things first.) --87.78.168.210 (talk) 19:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what happened there. The page was displaying "view source" instead of "edit" for some reason. On refresh, it properly displayed the edit button. --87.78.168.210 (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Evolutionary Purpose?

Question: What evolutionary advantage is there to NOT being a PZ?

I can think of none if outward appearance and behavious are exactly the same as for a 'normal' human. So why aren't we all PZs? Much simpler.

Secondly: PZs are not quite as hypothetical as it might seem. Any computer/robot etc that passes the Turing Test surely qualifies as a sort of PZ. A very adavanced computer/robot might seem equivalent to a human, or even actually appear to be human, but would - probably - be a PZ since it would be built on very different physical principles from a human brain.

But if a robot then claimed to be sentient how could we tell if it was being 'truthful'? Would it be murder to switch it off if there is no way to establish its PZ status?

All very puzzling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.21.22 (talk) 13:36, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I would turn the computer-argument around:

Since the functionality of any computer (or universal Turing machine) is already defined by its assembly and configuration (software), possessing a passive consciousness would be absolutely useless for the functionality of the computer.

Furthermore a non-passive consciousness, interacting with the computer (so that for example the computer knows it has a consciousness and speaks about this fact) would "over define" it, since it's actions are already defined by its assembly and software. Since you can't even state that it is not possible to build a computer or Turing machine whose functionality are solely based on its assembly and software (because all of them are) you have the perfect Zombie-paradox! So you could rule out the idea there could ever be a computer or universal Turing machine possessing a consciousness that is of actual use for the machine (because this would contradict the fact that the machine can already run on its software alone, like a Zombie would function without consciousness).

Side-note: Since our consciousness seems to be non-passive, since my body can't be isolated from my consciousness, because otherwise my body would not type these lines about "Why I possess consciousness", this fact, combined with the Zombie-Argument, would speak in favor for classical interactionist dualism. Mat11001 (talk) 14:20, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Remember that talk pages are not forums, and should always relate to improving the article. It'd be good to see something about evolutionary advantage in the article if people have already written about this, but there are other places on the internet if we want to just chat amongst ourselves. --McGeddon (talk) 17:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Redundancy of Purpose?

This page brings forth for further examination the eternal question with philosophy: whether what can be thought of is actually worth thinking about. However, after examining each individual argument on this subject in turn, whatever the true state of present philosophical research into the theoretical possibility of zombie existence in a purely theoretical world is (and in further questioning the logical validity of the question, "Are zombies theoretically possible in the real world?"), only zombies would have the real, indisputably right answer, logical or not. --Captain Chipper (talk) 12.35, 4 Nov 2012 (UTC)

Consciousness of Others Not Called into Question

Throughout the discussion (and generally in similar ones elsewhere), it is generally assumed that entities besides the author are conscious, as he perceives himself to be. Thus the reader encounters phrases such as "we are conscious" and "human beings are conscious" - but surely here is where any tendencies toward circular reasoning get started. Can the reasoner say that another is conscious and not a zombie? Not via empirical evidence! The universe of unconscious zombies (other than oneself), far from being a thought experiment, a philosophical construct, might indeed be the reality in which one lives. An intellectually rigorous approach to the question has to begin with asking if it is true, not asking if it is merely "possible". And once I realize I have no empirical way of knowing, this puts the question on the footing it belongs. To me, so much confusion in this kind of discussion arises due to a tendency to gloss over the basic issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MistySpock (talk • contribs) 18:39, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, does this rant have anything to do with improving the article? — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 18:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Not meant as a rant. I take it you find these points uninteresting? I think it speaks for itself. To include something along these lines in the page itself would make it more complete. Not to do so seems a significant omission, not just here, but elsewhere. I cheer whenever I see these points made - such as in How the Mind Works. MistySpock (talk) 00:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

We have a policy about "original research", which basically says we can't insert our own opinions and viewpoints into articles, especially if the text has the kind of tone that you use in your post here (passionate/assertive). Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Find a reliable source that says the things you want to say, and then get back here. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 16:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually I think what you're saying here is out of the scope of this article, when we have Solipsism and Problem of other minds. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 16:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

ok. thanks. MistySpock (talk) 11:32, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is also not a chat forum. The talk pages are to discuss how to improve the article, and not to conduct general discussions about the subject. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

This article needs 1) a definition of "sound" or "sound refutation" (before reading link 2) 2) a reference to how Philosophical Zombies are just Ideas (as in, Platonic Idealism) but more deceptive since they're deemed real as long as someone can make an inventive enough logical argument for them. (Logic does not rule out its axioms. Therefore, that any one logical argument is sound is provable only from axioms proven real. This is not identical to the 1st paragraph of Responses.) 3) Reference to 'all arguments for a First Cause / Prime Mover is a Philosophical zombie' with the axiom being the standard Ex Nihilo.

HenrikErlandsson (talk) 21:38, 21 April 2013 (UTC)