Questions tagged [zombies]
A philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience while normal human beings are assumed to not lack any of these, although Dan Dennett and some others have disagreed and said that we are *all* p-zombies.
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Why would the absence of Chalmers' 'consciousness' make p-zombie world 'inconceivable'?
Or "not logically possible", whichever.
I'm only asking about the negation.
Also not about the philosophical arguments themselves, except where they may explain the use of the negated word.
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Does the dominant science paradigm imply that we are robots? [duplicate]
If everything is composed of atoms and atoms make up molecules, which make up the brain, which (through interactions with other inanimate objects) cause all of your brain activity, then it would seem ...
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Are there philosophers who argue that mental states are in a many-to-one relationship to physical states?
The following is a philosophical position that I find quite appealing, and I'm wondering if there are any philosophers who actively argue for it, i.e. does the following view have a name?
We start by ...
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Is it possible for there to be an AI chatbot that is a philosophical non-zombie?
As far as I know, the current philosophical consensus is that chatbots like ChatGPT are not conscious.
However, in analogy with philosophical zombies, would it be possible to have a "...
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What would happen if I suddenly lost consciousness?
What would happen if I (my body) suddenly lost consciousness? Let's say a freak accident caused the part of my brain responsible for connecting/creating/hallucinating my "being", my ...
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On the conceivability of philosophical zombies [duplicate]
A big question in the philosophy of consciousness is whether philosophical zombies are conceivable, and if they are, are they also metaphysically possible. I believe the answer is yes. At least, I can ...
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About the validity of the Zombie concept
Related Posts that I read:
why zombies' existence imply physicalism is false
"Could all of us be zombies" assumption
Context
Just to make sure we talk about the same type of Zombie, here ...
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What is the difference between advanced AI controlled humanoid robot and philosophical zombie?
Considering a future where AI systems have advanced to create humanoid robots that can behave and appear indistinguishably human, yet remain without consciousness, could we say these AI systems are ...
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What responses are there to this criticism of Chalmers' p-zombies?
In this blog post, Elizier Yudkowsky criticizes Chalmers' idea of "p-zombies" - that is, a physically identical version of the universe in which all the same physical actions and events ...
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Would there be a concept of lying in a philosophical zombie world?
I asked a similar question before, here: Would language have meaning, if there was no consciousness?, but the current question is more specific.
Consider a world like ours, but without consciousness, ...
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How, in layman's terms, should this Conifold argument against illusionism be interpreted?
There's a discussion about philosophical zombies and illusionism going on in The Symposium, which is the main chat room for Philosophy on Stack Exchange and Conifold posted this a day or two ago (the ...
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Can philosophical zombies think or love?
I read somewhere that philosophical zombies can think. However, I don't think that is true at all. I believe thinking and loving are mental states, and only conscious beings can have mental states. ...
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Why do people hide the assumption contained in the philosophical zombies question/idea?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article called "Zombies" https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/ makes no mention of an assumption that seems to be hidden in the famous ...
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Aren't we all philosophical zombies?
I've been reading about the philosophy of the mind, and I'm a bit confused. Everything I've read seems to start with the (unjustified) assumption that there is some aspect of the mind that isn't ...
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Is it immoral to kill a philosophical zombie?
Is unplugging a robot from power the same as killing a person? As the commenters said this does not quite work because robots can be plugged back in. So let's replace robots with philosophical zombies,...
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What is the physicalist response to the explanatory gap for conciousness?
The zombie argument against physicalism usually goes like this
Physically identical zombies are conceivable.
If zombies are conceivable, they are metaphysically possible.
Therefore physicalism is ...
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Does a philosophical zombie have mental states?
According to Chalmers, philosophical zombies are physically identical to each of us, but lack consciousness.
By 'consciousness' Chalmers means the qualitative feel we often experience. The what-it's-...
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Is the person in the mirror an example of a philosophical zombie?
Consider the following situation:
You are in a room that has a mirror as one of its walls.
You assert/commit to that you are conscious and have qualia.
You look at the mirror, and you observe your ...
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Can zombies have meaningful lives?
Can zombies have meaningful lives? If not, does that mean a meaningful life is "like" something?
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Can a version of the philosophical zombie concept be used to argue for libertarian freewill?
Philosophical Zombies are a thought experiment that is used to argue for dualism and against functionalism. The argument goes something like this:
A purely functionalist account of the mind fails to ...
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Does having free will presuppose consciousness, can philosophical zombies have it?
Philosophical zombies may lack a consciousness, but does this preclude the ability to have a free will? Why does consciousness matter, for agency, or at all, if determinism is real?
(I've framed the ...
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Zombies and Occam's razor
Consider the following scenario:
(i) Due to the human's biology (or for some other reasons), everyone is actually a zombie, and there is only a handful of people (including me, the person writing ...
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Is it reasonable to believe that others have sentient minds?
Obviously I'm not looking for a valid deductive proof using formal logic, but at least a relatively convincing argument.
How do I know that humans who I encounter other than myself have sentient ...
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Does anyone assert the real existence of p-zombies?
Philosophical zombies are usually presented as, let say, "conceivable" and then this assertion is used to infer dualism.
Have any philosophers taken the position that p-zombies are in fact real, and, ...
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If zombies are possible would that imply that physicalism is false?
The SEP article on Zombies writes:
Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures used to illuminate
problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world.
Unlike those in films or ...
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