[ExI] Coherent vs. Incoherent Fears of Being Uploaded

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Mon Jan 18 22:05:10 UTC 2010


2010/1/19 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> 2010/1/18 Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>>
>> A regular zombie doesn't know whether he is a zombie or not, since he
>> has no mind and no knowledge of anything
>
> In that case he is not a "regular" zombie, because it differs from a human
> being at least in one kind or another of tangible, phenomenical (internal?)
> showing of cosciousness that can imagined.

The standard definition of a philosophical zombie is that it does not
have any consciousness, only intelligent behaviour. This may be
impossible if consciousness is a necessary accompaniment of
intelligent behaviour, as my arm rising into the air is a necessary
accompaniment of my deltoid muscle contracting and causing abduction
of my humerus.

>> Thus we have zombies who behave as if they are
>> conscious *and* honestly believe that they are conscious: conscious
>> zombies, but with an inferior zombie consciousness.
>
> Only that there is no way to distinguish such "false consciousness" from the
> real thing.

Yes, that was my point. What I'm calling a conscious zombie may be
similar to Dennett's zimboe. Dennett thinks zombies are a disgrace to
philosophy.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou



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