Benquo comments on Hand vs. Fingers - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Benquo 31 March 2008 02:45:00AM 0 points [-]

The main difference in my own mind between positing zombies and conscious persons is:
1) the greater sympathy I feel with "real" people, imagining the feelings that correspond to their actions, and
2) the fact that I say that they are, rather than are not, conscious.
Does anyone arguing for the possibility or meaningfulness of a p-zombie materially disagree with what goes on in the mind of someone who supposes a p-zombie or a conscious person? Since if there's no disagreement about that, I don't see how there can be any disagreement on what "p-zombie" means, unless people are arguing about what the word "means" means.
On the other hand, if there is disagreement about what the actual mental content of belief in p-zombies is, maybe we should work that out before talking about whether such a belief is coherent or not.