Richard4 comments on Hand vs. Fingers - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 March 2008 12:36AM

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Comment author: Richard4 30 March 2008 06:00:54PM 0 points [-]

Caledonian - the addition of p-consciousness has no physical consequences. To infer that it has "absolutely no consequences of any kind" is obviously question-begging against those of us who hold that there are non-physical facts (e.g. what it is like, subjectively, to be in such-and-such a physical state). The zombie world is appreciably different from ours in these other respects.

Incidentally, the principle you depend upon is self-defeating. Consider:

(Scientism): A claim is coherent only if it has scientific implications.

What are the scientific implications of this principle? What empirical test would show whether Scientism is true or false? It is incoherent by its own lights.