Are you going to say you can converse with a sponge? — Wayfarer

No. That's a really obvious strawman. I'm saying that it's wrong to say "X isn't conscious, therefore X is dead" because having consciousness isn't part of the biological definition of life.

Philosophical zombies are living things that lack consciousness.

I don't see why it would be – moral intuitions about killing don't center on the suffering of the killed, for obvious reasons. Also, there would only be a sense in which a p-zombie doesn't suffer. — The Great Whatever

Okay, so how about hurting them? If that particular sense of "suffering" does not apply to p-zombies, than any moral judgments related to causing people to suffer in that sense would not apply to p-zombies. If a p-zombie cannot suffer in some specific sense, then any attempt to stop them from suffering in that sense is pointless, because it won't happen anyway.

On second thought, though, my reasoning here looks a little suspicious. You could argue that the ethical treatment of a human being is not significantly altered by the kinds of experiences that p-zombies lack. They lack qualia, but you say that they can suffer regardless. So pain qualia ("pain" understood in a general sense) aren't necessary for suffering, or at least, that's what I assume.

If that's what you mean - that someone can suffer without pain qualia - then I'd like to know what you mean by "suffering," because I would identify it with having certain experiences, and I assume that having an experience just is having a particular set of qualia.

I know you follow Schopenhauer on a lot of stuff, so let me try that: pain is when there's an impression in the body of a subject that the subject does not will, so, basically, a contradiction in the Will that the subject is (I think?), apprehended by the subject in the subject's representation of itself. Okay, it looks to me like the subject has to have qualia if it is an object for itself because then it's having an experience, and if we're qualia theorists, you can't experience stuff without qualia. Or am I just wrong to read this from the Schopenhauer angle, because the qualia terminology doesn't mesh with his philosophy? I only bring him up because I know you follow his line on a lot of things, thought it might work. Let me know where I went wrong.

Okay, so how about hurting them?

...

If that's what you mean - that someone can suffer without pain qualia - then I'd like to know what you mean by "suffering," because I would identify it with having certain experiences, and I assume that having an experience just is having a particular set of qualia. — Pneumenon

So it's not possible to hurt someone with congenital insensitivity to pain? Surely that they suffer physical injury is relevant, even if there's no pain?

If by "hurt" you mean "injure," then yes, it's possible. If by "hurt" you mean "cause pain to," then no, it's not possible, for that kind of pain at least.

If by "hurt" you mean "injure," then no. If by "hurt" you mean "cause pain to," then yes, for that kind of pain at least. — Pneumenon

Well, I guess it depends what you mean as you brought up harm. If by "harm" you mean "cause pain to" then it doesn't even make sense to say "it is (not) wrong to harm p-zombies" as p-zombies can't be harmed (in this sense) at all.

And if by harm you mean "injure", and if it's wrong to harm others, then what does having or not having consciousness have to do with it?

"It is not wrong to perform an act on a p-zombie that would harm a non-zombie by means of causing them to have painful qualia that equate to suffering." How's that?

"It is not wrong to perform an act on a p-zombie that would harm a non-zombie by means of causing them to have painful qualia that equate to suffering." How's that? — Pneumenon

Replace a p-zombie with someone with congenital insensitivity to pain. Is it not wrong to perform acts on them that would cause pain to someone who could feel pain?

I think I'd rightly be condemned for punching someone who couldn't feel pain even though it wouldn't cause them pain.

Philosophical zombies are living things that lack consciousness. — Michael

As are sponges. The difference is, you're supposed to be able to converse with them. That is not a straw man argument, to say so simply shows you're not representing the concept properly.

So it's not possible to hurt someone with congenital insensitivity to pain? Surely that they suffer physical injury is relevant, even if there's no pain? — Michael

If they were a zombie, it wouldn't matter if they were injured or cut into small pieces and fed into the waste disposal, because they're not persons.

As are sponges. The difference is, you're supposed to be able to converse with them. That is not a straw man argument, to say so simply shows you're not representing the concept properly. — Wayfarer

I am attacking your claim that p-zombies are dead because they're not conscious. Whether or not we can converse with sponges has nothing to do with this.

If they were a zombie, it wouldn't matter if they were injured or cut into small pieces and fed into the waste disposal, because they're not persons.

On what grounds do you justify the claim that it is only wrong to injure something if it is a conscious human (which I assume is what you mean by "person")?

And what about animals? Are they persons? If not then it's not wrong to injure them or cut them into small pieces and fed into the waste disposal?

I am attacking your claim that p-zombies are dead because they're not conscious. — Michael

They're not conscious. That is the definition of 'zombie'. They appear to be conscious, but they're zombies. They act like 'conscious beings' but they're not. Again, that is why they're called 'zombies', a.k.a. 'the living dead'. If you say they're conscious, then you don't know what 'zombie' means, nor the point of the argument.

On what grounds do you justify the claim that it is only wrong to injure something if it is a conscious human (which I assume is what you mean by "person")? — Michael

Because they are subjects of experience, which, by definition, zombies are not.

And what about animals? Are they persons? — Michael

They're also subjects of experience, but not persons.

They're not conscious. That is the definition of 'zombie'. They appear to be conscious, but they're zombies. They act like 'conscious beings' but they're not. Again, that is why they're called 'zombies', a.k.a. 'the living dead'. — Wayfarer

Again, you're conflating. That a traditional zombie is defined as "the living dead" (an oxymoron anyway) is not that a philosophical zombie is defined as "the living dead". Philosophical zombies are living, non-conscious humans.

I've shown you – and you've accepted – that something can be alive but not conscious (e.g. sponges and plants). Therefore it is a non sequitur to argue that philosophical zombies are dead because they're not conscious. Being conscious is not a defining feature of biological life.

They're also subjects of experience, but not persons.

Then – assuming that you're accepting that it's wrong to injure animals – it's a non-sequitur to argue that "it wouldn't matter if they were injured or cut into small pieces and fed into the waste disposal, because they're not persons". Instead you should argue that "it wouldn't matter if they were injured or cut into small pieces and fed into the waste disposal, because they're not subjects of experience". But you're yet to justify this claim. Why is it only wrong to injure something if it can experience?

Maybe our difficulty in discussing the 'hard problem' is physiological. Maybe a number of philosophers are p-zombies. — The Great Whatever

When reading the article, the subject may not be able to picture a beach for instance, but he is still able to articulate it based on his experience at the beach. So when thinking about Wittgenstein' private language argument, the meaning behind the expression is enough verification that the subject is not a p-zombie since he is able to declare sand, sea, beach ball or whatever, despite the fact that he is unable to imagine it. His mental state is irrelevant when he is functionally capable of expressing, behaving etc &c., and awareness of our own subjective experience - since the subject is aware that he cannot see images - is perhaps enough.

If we focus the attention on the physiological, perhaps we would not really be talking about the hard problem, but maybe attempting to define what makes 'personhood' such as Singer' view of the differences between sentience and consciousness.

The point about zombies is, they're dead. — Wayfarer

They're not dead. They're brain dead, purely instinctual and what Aristotle refers to as the "masses and the most vulgar" that think that happiness is founded through pleasure. :P

They're brain dead — TimeLine

They're not brain dead as the brain still functions.

They're not brain dead as the brain still functions. — Michael

Mind dead?

(Y)

I think I'd rightly be condemned for punching someone who couldn't feel pain even though it wouldn't cause them pain. — Michael

What makes it wrong?

What makes it wrong? — Pneumenon

I don't know. Do you know what makes it wrong to cause someone pain?

What makes it wrong? — Pneumenon

It depends on who is punching; one could feel emotional or subjective pain if someone they cared about used violence against them because it may express hate or rejection. It doesn't need to physically hurt.

As we get better at sussing out phenomenological differences, more of them may become part of common knowledge. What is so absurd that we might find out that there's a large divide between people, some of whom can experience and some of whom can't? — The Great Whatever

This is really an over-read of what is occurring. Aphantasiacs most certainly can experience things. They just don't experience them in a visual way. I would say that the vast majority of my experience is non visual. It's not like I read these posts and have anything really concrete in my mind in terms of sensation (like sounds, pictures, etc.). Most of our experience is not represented that way. Nevertheless it's an experience. If you told me a cat walked down the street, I could visualize in my head an actual cat walking down a street, but I probably wouldn't if you just told me that. There's be no reason to. Sometimes when someone is telling a story, they may ask you to actually imagine the events happening, but that's not necessary to relay the story.

Sure, it's an interesting fact that some can't visualize, but I don't see this implying that we have real life p-zombies walking around. It just means that experience is holistic, with all sorts of feelings, understandings and whatever wrapped up into that very experience. No one has ever suggested an experience is just a clump of pictures and sounds swirling in your head and that without that clump, you'd have no experience.

I don't know if I followed all of your questions. The questions all seem to relate to mind/body interaction. I would expect that two people with very different experiential states could behave overtly the same. A group of synchronized swimmers might be all thinking different things as they carried out their stupidity.

I would expect that two people with very different experiential states could behave overtly the same. — Hanover

Would you expect someone with no experiential states to behave overtly the same as those that have them? If not, is that because experiential states are the only things that can cause such behaviour or because experiential states necessarily emerge from the only things that can cause such behaviour (e.g. particular brain activity)?

Of course, this question only really matters if your claim that "there's a world of difference between having limited internal experience and entirely lacking the ability to experience" refers to a world of behavioural differences.

This is really an over-read of what is occurring. Aphantasiacs most certainly can experience things. — Hanover

Well, I never said they couldn't, so I'm not sure of the relevance.

Yeah, it wouldn't, but I'm not sure how much actual application of moral principles, to the extent people are moral, really has anything to do with conscious experiences. Again, p-zombies behave almost exactly the same as non-p-zombies, so I doubt you'd have to make any change to your moral practices at all.

I think a lot of people say suffering is bad, but then by that they can just mean whatever it is happens to people whether p-zombie or not. Whether they specifically mean the qualitative experience of suffering isn't clear, since people would be repulsed by it anyway.

Actually, a lot of analytic philosophers come strangely close to denying that pain, in this sense, exists – check out Georges Rey and Richard Rorty's stuff. Yet they don't for all that seem to deny that we shouldn't make people suffer. It's like how people disapprove of incest – more of a 'thou shalt not' that for obscure social and biological reasons became traditional.

Would you expect someone with no experiential states to behave overtly the same as those that have them? — Michael

I wouldn't expect them to behave the same, and in practice, no computer can make it past a few minutes under a Turing Test. If you're asking hypothetically whether they could behave the same, which is to ask whether there could be a computer that so mimicked human overt behavior that it was indistinguishable from a human with internal experience, I don't see why not. That is just to posit a p-zombie.

If not, is that because experiential states are the only things that can cause such behaviour or because experiential states necessarily emerge from the only things that can cause such behaviour (e.g. particular brain activity)? — Michael

Since I answered in the affirmative, this question is inapplicable. However, hypothetically, had I answered as you'd have assumed I would, my response would be to agree with you. If certain overt behaviors are necessarily linked to certain internal states, then obviously they are dependent upon one another.

Of course, this question only really matters if your claim that "there's a world of difference between having limited internal experience and entirely lacking the ability to experience" refers to a world of behavioural differences. — Michael

But that seems such a straw man. Why would anyone suggest that overt behavioral differences are critical when assessing the significance of internal states? It would suggest that a quadriplegic with no muscle control whatsoever, but who has fully intact mental function is no different than a dead man. That I cannot act on my thoughts does not makes my thoughts not matter.

This is really an over-read of what is occurring. Aphantasiacs most certainly can experience things. — Hanover

Well, I never said they couldn't, so I'm not sure of the relevance. — The Great Whatever

This was the comment I was referring to:

What is so absurd that we might find out that there's a large divide between people, some of whom can experience and some of whom can't? — The Great Whatever

If all you're saying is that there are great variations in phenomenological experience, I do think that's an interesting scientific fact, but I don't know how it matters to this philosophical question any more than the well accepted fact that there are great variations in how well different people's perceptions work as well as their intellect in deciphering the meaning of their experiences.

Now, if there are partial p-zombies demonstrably, why is it so odd that there might be actual p-zombies? Maybe the philosophers who claim not to have, or understand qualia, literally don't have them. And the conversational 'trigger' that made them realize this was someone talking about the 'hard problem.' — The Great Whatever

I think there are better explanations as to why some philosophers deny qualitative experience than the hypothesis that they are actually p-zombies. The history of their ideas is grounded in some kind of positivism and/or physicalism, and a repudiation of theism and dualism or any of the other theories on the "opposite" side of the spectrum. For example, the motivation for eliminativist materialism was not that it actually made any sense, but rather it saw that science was so successful in some areas and assumed this would carry on to the mind as well, reducing it away.

But say people like Dennett or the Churchlands are actually p-zombies. This has implications for the nature of qualia in general. It would mean it is epiphenomenal, as the p-zombies like Dennett seem to operate just as well as those who firmly believe we have qualia. However we can ask why it is epiphenomenal; why would qualia even exist, and why would the brain use energy to produce it (assuming it is a result of neural activity)?

So probably the better hypothesis, in my opinion, would be that those who deny qualia have an irrational attachment to a worldview that they prophetically believe to be the most rational which is nevertheless in major contradiction to our own lives, and that epiphenomena that last for an extended period of time are at odds with a universe that is maintained through parameters. In short, epiphenomena are even more strange, especially when only some creatures have them and not every creature and furthermore when they cannot be reduced to the physical.

If all you're saying is that there are great variations in phenomenological experience, I do think that's an interesting scientific fact, but I don't know how it matters to this philosophical question any more than the well accepted fact that there are great variations in how well different people's perceptions work as well as their intellect in deciphering the meaning of their experiences. — Hanover

The point is that in conducting philosophy, it seems not to be assumed that people differ in a very basic way as to their experiential capabilities and therefore in their access to certain kinds of intuitive evidence, except in the obvious cases, like blindness.

These differences may be at the heart of the misunderstandings surrounding the existence of, or how to interpret, certain sorts of intuitive evidence.

It would mean it is epiphenomenal, as the p-zombies like Dennett seem to operate just as well as those who firmly believe we have qualia. — darthbarracuda

They do until they are explicitly asked questions about consciousness. Then they become noticeably different.

These differences may be at the heart of the misunderstandings surrounding the existence of, or how to interpret, certain sorts of intuitive evidence. — The Great Whatever

Then aphantasia is not being used to address the p-zombie debate contrary to the name of this thread, but is only being cited as evidence of the significance of variation among philosophers?

But certainly it seems qualia plays a more functional role than just when we are discussing its existence. Which is why I said to accept your argument would require we see qualia as epiphenomenal.