[ExI] Coherent vs. Incoherent Fears of Being Uploaded

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2010/1/22 Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>:

> If philosophical zombies can exist then by definition they can exist only with no mental contents, i.e., with no conscious intentionality -- with no conscious beliefs or realizations about anything whatsoever. If you have conscious awareness of such things going on in your head then you know you're not a zombie.

Yes, but if it were possible to make brain components that function
like the brain in every way except lacking consciousness, then it
would be possible to arbitrarily remove any aspect of a persons
consciousness and they would not realise that anything had changed.
That would mean you could be at least partially a zombie right now and
not realise it; for example, you might be blind or aphasic, even
though you are convinced you are not. If you think this is absurd, as
it seems you do, then you have to find a way to avoid the absurdity.
The obvious way to avoid it is to say that it is impossible to
separate consciousness from brain function. The only other way I can
think of to avoid it is to deny that consciousness is caused by the
brain, but that isn't acceptable to you. Do you have another way to
avoid it that you haven't yet revealed?


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou