[ExI] Zombies are logically inconsistent: a proof

[Brent Allsop]

On Wed, May 17, 2023, 9:40 AM Gadersd via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Yes I think they accept this. If it's logically possible for a physically
> identical being to behave in all manners in the same ways, and not be
> conscious, then there can be no test to determine if another is conscious.
>
> Moreover, there can be no test anyone could perform to know they're not
> themselves a zombie (this point is often overlooked by believers in zombies
> but it follows from their belief that qualia have no effects in the world).
>
>
> Isn’t “I think therefore I am” a sufficient observation to prove
> self-consciousness to oneself?
>

Exactly.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6paid6fgr8o7ybq/bent_pencil.png?dl=0

You have subjective knowledge of that pencil.  Even though you can doubt
that the pencil out there is bent, as it seems, or that it even exist (if
you are a brain in a vat) but you can't doubt that your knowledge of that
pencil is bent, nor can you doubt the false colored quality of that
knowledge.

Objective descriptions of that knowledge we get through our senses can't
tell you what that quality is like, till we connect that objective
description with the way we subjectively experience the same.  Once we
experimentally demonstrate that, we will then know the true qualities of
things (have the required dictionary grounding of what our abstracting
senses detect) then we will not only objectively  know what is and isn't
conscious, we will know what it is like.  Along with knowing the true
qualities of everything.

In my opinion, once you understand those easy and absolute facts about
qualities, all this talk of zombies is a waste of time.


Even if zombies are possible people can still apply this observation to
> themselves, but will remain uncertain of other people’s consciousness. I
> don’t see any logical contradiction in the idea that consciousness has a
> component that isn’t physically detectable, but may be observable
> consciously. I do believe that all properties of consciousness are
> physically detectable, but am not convinced that this is logically
> necessary.
>

> On May 17, 2023, at 7:34 AM, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 17, 2023, 4:19 AM efc--- via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Good morning,
>>
>
>
> Thanks, to you as well! Or good afternoon depending on when and where you
> receive this. ��
>
>
>> On Tue, 16 May 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:
>>
>> > It follows from corrolary 4 that we as physical beings can have no more
>> access to this information than any zombie does, i.e. we have
>> > no more (or less) access to our own mental states than does a zombie.
>>
>> This is what I thought. Can someone explain to me how believers in
>> zombies motivate that other people are not zombies?
>
>
> Brent would say there's some special molecule in our brains. Searle would
> say there's some unique causal power in our biology. Chalmers would say
> there's some extra property in our universe which enables consciousnesses
> to accompany certain causal organizations (which is not logically necessary
> in other conceivable universes). Dualists would say God puts a soul into
> each human (but they never say why God could not put a soul into a machine).
>
> They must point to a
>> clear criterion and say this is "not zombie", and lacking that, you are
>> a zombie.
>>
>> It seems to me the only non-zombie there can ever be with that point of
>> view, is oneself.
>
>
> Yes I think they accept this. If it's logically possible for a physically
> identical being to behave in all manners in the same ways, and not be
> conscious, then there can be no test to determine if another is conscious.
>
> Moreover, there can be no test anyone could perform to know they're not
> themselves a zombie (this point is often overlooked by believers in zombies
> but it follows from their belief that qualia have no effects in the world).
>
> Dennett realizes this second point which is why he says that if zombies
> were possible then we're all zombies.
>
> Jason
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