What if a loved one was a P-Zombie?

hypericin

Scientists make an astonishing discovery: a certain microstructure in the brain, previously believed to be vestigial, is in fact responsible for consciousness. Moreover, this structure is absent in part of the population.

Behaviorally, its absence makes little difference, apart for a few subtle impairments. But internally, the consequences are profound: those who lack this structure have no internal lives at all. They are P-Zombies. There is striking scientific consensus to this fact, comparable to that for anthropogenic climate change.

A quick test is developed for the presence of this structure. You take it, and of course, you are positive. Unfortunately, your loved one is negative: They are a P Zombie.

How would you respond?

Would you lie to yourself, cling to the <1% of dissenting experts, and carry on the relationship as if they were not a P-Zombie?
Would you continue the relationship with full knowledge of their zombiehood, as ultimately it doesn't matter?
Would you abandon the relationship?
Would you continue the relationship, and treat this finding as permission to give full vent to your most sadistic, narcissistic fantasies? (Polls are anonymous)

Jackson

Worries about zombies is a vestige of the Christian idea of a soul.

Bartricks

↪hypericin

I don't see the philosophical relevance of your questions.

If you discovered that your house, which up to now you had thought was made of wood and plaster, was actually made of brandy snaps and icing sugar, would you a) start eating it; b) move out; c) sell up; d) start thinking you were living in a children's story; e) go and sit in your chocolate cake sofa and watch a box set?

hypericin

↪Bartricks

An asinine reply worthy of a p zombie.

Bartricks

↪hypericin

That makes no sense. P zombies resemble us in every outward way, so there is no 'reply' that is typical of them but not us. And it wouldn't be a real reply if I were a p zombie - it'd be bot generated. So it would be an apparent reply, but not a real one.
But if this is a bot reply would you a) bake a cake; b) make another reply that makes no sense and reveals the sloppy nature of your own thinking; c) start another thread asking philosophically uninteresting questions about a curious scenario?

hypericin

That makes no sense. P zombies resemble us in every outward way — Bartricks

Yet, p zombies are thoughtless, as are you.

Jackson

Yet, p zombies are thoughtless, as are you. — hypericin

Agree.

Bartricks

↪hypericin

So you went with b.

hypericin

Worries about zombies is a vestige of the Christian idea of a soul. — Jackson

No, p-zombies are a thought experiment, not the kind of thing that keeps most people up at night.

If I had to put my "philosophy question" baldly, it would be: "are relationships, especially loving ones, contingent on the sentience of the other party?"

Jackson

No, p-zombies are a thought experiment, — hypericin

I know what it is.

Bartricks

↪Jackson

But how do you know that you agree? How does anyone know anything?

Scientists have discovered that your loved one is genetically a cat, even though they are in every other way indistinguishable from another human. Do you a) have her put down; b) insist she eat from a dish on the floor and stay off the furniture; c) rethink the visit to the bird sanctuary; d)continue as normal and watch a box set?

180 Proof

Not care. It's about my "sentience", not theirs.

hypericin

Not care. It's about my "sentience", not theirs. — 180 Proof

Doesn't love require connection? How can you connect with someone you know isn't there?
Why the scare quotes?

180 Proof

Doesn't love require connection? How can you connect with someone you know isn't there? — hypericin

We love people we do not have a "connection" with e.g. celebrities, authors, leaders, the dead, etc. We also love inanimate or abstract objects e.g. stuffed animals, our country / city, our sports team, vehicles, cultural objects, power, wealth, etc. Love is a highly emotional attachment to someone/thing with or without "connection".

Why the scare quotes?

"Sentience" may be epiphenomenal and serve no more of a function than color-sightedness.

god must be atheist

↪180 Proof

"Sentience" may be epiphenomenal and serve no more of a function than color-sightedness. — 180 Proof

If this practice of skepticism was followed through thoroughly and logically and truly, then you'd need to put every word in quotes whatever you write.

I think you'd do better by following the language convention according to the unwritten rules of the convention, instead of making maverick exceptions with select words, that are illogically unconnected to the context of your selection.

To wit: function is an epiphenomenon.
Wit is an epiphenomenon.
Be is an epiphenomenon.

I have more and more respect for you as the time goes by and the more I read of your posts, but you actually ANGER :death: :naughty: :rage: :fire: :vomit: me with your illogical writing style.

god must be atheist

Would you continue the relationship, and treat this finding as permission to give full vent to your most sadistic, narcissistic fantasies? (Polls are anonymous) — hypericin

It does not work that way. A true sadist never finds true satisfaction, because he or she does not feel the pain of the victim. This is why sadism / masochism is oft a flip-flop switch. If s/he does not feel his/her victim's pain, then s/he does not feel s/he is inflicting pain. If the subject is a zombie, then the sadist is even farther removed from his/her goal, which is inflicting pain.

This is why trying to inflict pain in bartricks is a losing endeavour. S/he is truly a troll; a rock-eating, heave-ho mountain troll. She has no feelings, she is a badly written A/I program that went loose cannon. To shut her up is impossible by holding a mirror to her; to shut her up you need to not respond to her.

NOS4A2

It’s not a lie to dissent. I would defer to dissent from the prevailing view because the claim that one is not conscious but they still perform the activity of conscious people betrays my intuition and experience.

I would retain my relationships in the belief that greater minds will supersede these views with their own.

hypericin

We love people we do not have a "connection" with e.g. celebrities, authors, leaders, the dead, etc. We also love inanimate or abstract objects e.g. stuffed animals, our country / city, our sports team, vehicles, cultural objects, power, wealth, etc — 180 Proof

Try telling your partner you love them like you love your teddy bear or your sports team. These are not the same relationships, even if the word "love" can be used for all of them.

"Sentience" may be epiphenomenal and serve no more of a function than color-sightedness. — 180 Proof

This possibility is what the p zombie thought experiment suggests. I've never heard the suggestion that color sightedness serves no function.

hypericin

betrays my intuition and experience — NOS4A2

That does not make it false.

I am stipulating that p zombies are real in this scenario, and you still won't accept it. This is lying to yourself, just as "dissenting" from overwhelming scientific consensus, unless you truly have the expertise to do so. You should have chosen 'a'.

Marchesk

I think if you had reason to believe someone was just acting as if they loved you, but didn't, and the relationship was based on the belief in mutual feeling of love, then you would leave them. I don't want to be with someone who's just going through the motions, even if it's because they're a p-zombie, and even if it's very convincing.

Imagine a really good actor was paid without your knowledge to pretend to fall in love with you and start a romantic relationship. The relationship goes well, but then you discover the truth. Do you go on with the lie? I suspect not.

There have been con artists and sociopaths who have fooled people into relationships, but of course their behavior eventually outs the truth. The p-zombie wouldn't.

Other kinds of relationships my have obligations and rewards that don't require a belief in someone's experience of love. Maybe you just enjoy being around that person enough that it doesn't matter? I think it would at least hurt to find out some relationships had no reciprocal feelings. But a romantic one is most likely a deal breaker, unless you're hopelessly in love. Or you've been married long enough, lol.

NOS4A2

↪hypericin

That doesn’t make it true, either. Your stipulation is just that, a stipulation, like they stipulated phlogiston or a pantheon of gods. A dissenting view isn’t a lie. You ought to have had an option for dissenting from the prevailing view.

ChrisH

Behaviorally, its absence makes little difference — hypericin

What difference? Or do you mean to say "no difference"?

180 Proof

↪god must be atheist

I've no idea what you're talking about.

↪hypericin

I neither claimed nor implied that color-signedness "serves no function". Also, what you say about "love" is a non sequitur with respect to the question posed in the OP.

hypericin

That doesn’t make it true, either. Your stipulation is just that, a stipulation, like they stipulated phlogiston or a pantheon of gods. — NOS4A2

In my imaginary scenario I have the power to stipulate whatever I wish. But please, "dissent" away. Is that you I see with the tin foil hat and cardboard sign?

unenlightened

In my imaginary scenario I have the power to stipulate whatever I wish. — hypericin

You do. But I do not have the power to make sense of the philosophical zombie stipulations. It seems to me that the concept relies on a confusion of awareness with identity. Take an alzheimer's sufferer for example who might be your spouse. They may have forgotten your relationship and treat you as a stranger, but you have not, and do not. The relationship has become one-sided in this sense of identity sharing, but the person still feels joy and suffers fear and pain, just as animals do. That basic awareness should be absent while memory and identification is fully functional simply makes no sense to me.

"Alexa, what would you like for supper?"

Marchesk

That basic awareness should be absent while memory and identification is fully functional simply makes no sense to me. — unenlightened

You mean qualia? Because "awareness" or "self reports" are not considered consciousness by philosophers like chalmers, since they can be defined in purely functional terms, and implemented in robots or code. It's the sensations of colors, pains, emotions that make up consciousness. And those aren't functional.

unenlightened

You mean qualia? Because "awareness" or "self reports" are not considered consciousness by philosophers like chalmers, since they can be defined in purely functional terms, and implemented in robots or code. It's the sensations of colors, pains, emotions that make up consciousness. And those aren't functional. — Marchesk

I can't make sense of quaila either. Never knowingly had one. Am I a zombie?

Marchesk

I can't make sense of quaila either. Never knowingly had one. Am I a zombie? — unenlightened

You've never experienced red or pain or love? Sorry to heart that!

unenlightened

↪Marchesk

Oh you mean am I aware of stuff? Sure, of course, all the time when I am awake. But I never experience red - I see red flowers and postboxes and swatches on paint charts.

You are familiar with the ambiguity of 'experience'? Notice the tenses - I have or have not had an experience. It seems odd to say I am having or not having an experience. The case of alzheimers is instructive. Awareness as I call it, qualia as you want to call it or 'experiences' but no past tense experience to speak of. Your question repeats the confusion, from my point of view, of narrative self, as an identification in thought, and awareness as visceral presence in the world.

Marchesk

But I never experience red - I see red flowers and postboxes and swatches on paint charts. — unenlightened

You never imagine or dream red stuff? At any rate, I'm sure you've experienced pain.

It seems odd to say I am having or not having an experience. — unenlightened

You probably don't have experiences for some of the time you're asleep. I take it to mean it would seem odd to say you don't have experiences while you're aware of something. I agree that is odd for a human being, although there are some conditions like blind sightedness in which partial awareness is missing. But is it odd to say that my phone has no awareness of feeling cold when it tells me it's cold outside? I don't think so, because phones don't have sensations.

Ned Block wrote a paper on the harder problem of consciousness about the android Data, and how we would have difficulty deciding on what basis Data was conscious. Data, like my phone, could tell us that it is cold outside. But this doesn't mean Data would feel cold.

Agent Smith

Romance scams!

Honey traps!

Despite all the outwardly expressions of love, there is no love!

That said, speaking for myself, I would fall in love with a p-zombie despite the fact that in movies you shoot zombies in the head; even children kill zombies without raising eyebrows! :chin:

What if a loved one was a P-Zombie?

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