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RomanDavis comments on Open Thread: June 2010 - Less Wrong
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Oh, P Zombies are just the reductio ad absurdum version? Yeah, I don't believe in Zombies.
P-zombies aren't just reducio ad absurda although most of LW does consider them to be. David Chalmers, who is a very respected philosopher takes the idea quite seriously as do a surprisingly large number of other philosophers.
Please explain to me how it is not.
You can't just say, "This smart guy takes this very seriously." Aristotle took a lot of things very seriously that turned out to be nonsense.
'Zombie Review' provides some background here...
My point is that it isn't regarded in general as a a reducio. Indeed, it actually was originally constructed as an argument against physicalism. I see it as a reducio also or even more to the point as an indication of how much into a corner dualism has been pushed by science. The really scary thing is that some philosophers seem to think that P-zombies are a slam-dunk argument for dualism.
Who?
Nagel and Chalmers all seem to think it is a strong argument. Kirk used to think it was but since then has gone about Pi radians on that. My impression is that Block also sees it as a strong argument but I haven't actually read anything by Block. That's the impression I get from seeing Block mentioned in passing.
Thinking it's a strong argument is, of course, still a long way from thinking it's a "slam dunk" (nobody that I'm aware of thinks that).
Yeah, that wording may be too strong, although the impression I get certainly is that Kirk was convinced it was a slam dunk for quite some time. Kirk's book "Zombies and Consciousness" (which I've only read parts of) seems to describe him as having once considered to be pretty close to a slamdunk. But yeah, my wording was probably too strong.
Okay, I agree.
It's just really easy to take the explicit, "this guy takes it seriously" and make the implicit connection, "and this is totally not a silly idea at all."