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TheOtherDave comments on Zombies! Zombies? - Less Wrong
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You have misunderstood the argument completely. You say "I know I'm speaking from limited experience, here. But based on my limited experience, the Zombie Argument may be a candidate for the most deranged idea in all of philosophy." Melodrama, this, but I would advise focusing on the first part of the phrase ("But based on my limited experience....") if you want to make progress.
The main point of the zombie argument is that if science is so completely helpless that it can say nothing -- even in principle -- about the subjective phenomenology of consciousness (and by widespread consensus, this appears to be the case), then the possibility of a parallel universe in which that particular aspect is missing (i.e. the Zombie universe) cannot be ruled out. This Can't-Rule-It-Out aspect is what Chalmers is deploying.
He is NOT saying that we should believe in a parallel zombie universe (a common misunderstandinga among amateur philosophers), he is saying that IF science decides to do a certain kind of washing-its-hands on the whole phenomenology of consciousness idea THEN it follows that philosophers can declare that it is logically possible for there to be a parallel universe in which the thing is missing. It is that logical entailment that is being exploited as a way to come to a particular conclusion about the nature of consciousness.
Specifically, Chalmers then goes on to say that the very nature of subjective phenomenology is that we have privileged access to it, and we are able to assert its existence in some way. It is the conflict between privileged access and logical possibility of absence, that drives the various zombie arguments.
But notice what I said about science washing its hands. If science declares that there really is absolutely nothing it can say about pure subjective phenomenology, science cannot then try to have its cake and eat it too. Science (or rather you, with remarks like "I think I speak for all reductionists when I say Huh?") cannot turn right back around and say "That's preposterous!" when faced with the idea that a zombie universe is conceivable. Science cannot say:
Your misunderstanding comes from not appreciating that this is the conundrum on which the whole argument is based.
Instead, you just fell into the trap and tried to use "Huh!?" as a scientific response.
Finally, in case the point needs to be explained: why does the "Huh!" response not work? Try to apply it to this parallel case. Suppose you are trying to tell whether there is a possibility of a liar faking their emotions. You know: kid suspected of stealing cookies, and kid cries and emotes and pleads with Mother to believe that she didn't do it. Is it logically possible for the kid to give a genuine-looking display of innocence, while at the same time being completely guilty inside? If all liars had an equal facility with this kind of fake emotion, would philosophers be justified in saying that it is nevertheless LOGICALLY POSSIBLE for there to be all the outward signs of innocence, but with none of the internal innocence?
According to your approach, you could just simply laugh and say "Huh?", and then declare that "the Fake-Innocence Argument may be a candidate for the most deranged idea in all of philosophy."
Nicely argued.
So I suppose the question, for someone who wishes to rescue their opposition to zombies as logically possible entities, is what else they open the door to if they concede "You're right, science does have something to say about conscious experience after all. One thing science has to say about conscious experience is that a given physical state of the world either gives rise to conscious experience, or it doesn't; the same state of the world cannot do both."
That seems a relatively safe move to me.
All of that said, your analogy to Fake-Innocence is a bit of a bait-and-switch. The idea that two different systems (including the same individual at different times) can demonstrate identical behavior that is in one case the result of a specified mental state (innocence, consciousness, pain, what-have-you) and in the other case is not is very different from the idea that two identical systems ("identical behavior, identical speech, identical brain; every atom and quark in exactly the same position, moving according to the same causal laws of motion") can have the mental state in one case and not in the other.
It's not clear to me that incredulity is inappropriate with respect to the second claim, except in the sense that it's impolite.
About Science making the claim "You're right, science does have something to say about conscious experience after all ... [namely] ... that a given physical state of the world either gives rise to conscious experience, or it doesn't; the same state of the world cannot do both."
This would just be Solution By Fiat. Hardly a very dignified thing for Science to do.
And don't forget: Chalmers' goal is to say "IF there is a logical possibility that in another imaginable kind of universe a thing X does not exist (where it exists in this one), THEN this thing X is a valid subject of questions about its nature."
That is a truly fundamental aspect of epistemology -- one of the bedrock assumptions accepted by philosophers -- so all Chalmers is doing is employing it. Chalmers did not invent that line of argument.
About the analogy. It only looks like a bait and switch because I did not spell out the implications properly. I should have asked what would happen if there was no possible way for internal inspection of mental state to be done. If, for some reason, we could not do any physics to say what went on inside the mind when it was either telling the truth or lying, would it be valid to deploy that appeal to preposterousness? You must keep my assumption in order to understand the analogy, because I am asking about a situation in which we cannot ever distinguish the physical state of a lying human brain and a truthtelling human brain, but where we nevertheless had privileged access to our own mental states, and knew for sure that sometimes we lied when we made a genuine protest of innocence. (Imagine, if you will, a universe in which the crucial mental process that determined intention to tell the truth versus intention to deceive was actually located inside some kind of quantum field subject to an uncertainty principle, in such a way that external knowledge of the state was forbidden).
My point is that if we lived in such a universe, and if Eliezer poured scorn on the idea of Appearance-Of-Innocence without Intention-To-Be-Genuine, his appeal would be transparently empty.
I have no idea what dignity has to do with anything here.
As for the analogy... sure, if we discard the assertion that the two systems are physically identical, then there's no problem. Agreed. The idea that two systems can demonstrate the same behavior at some level of analysis (e.g., they both utter "Hey! I'm conscious!"), where one of them is conscious and one isn't, isn't problematic at all.
It's also not the claim the essay you're objecting to was objecting to.
That's why I classed it as a Bait and Switch.
It isn't solution by fiat; the idea isn't to add just that statement to science. Rather, the idea is that such a statement already seems probable from basic scientific considerations such as those discussed in the post.
EDIT:
I see now that this is not relevant. The point of the zombie argument is not to refute such considerations, but rather, to illustrate the difference between "the hard problem of consciousness" and other sorts of consciousness.
So, if we have knowledge that cannot possibly be observed in the physical world, then that proves that there is something else going on? Are you saying, for example, that we somehow know both the position and momentum of a particle with a precision greater than that allowed by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and that this gives rise to us either knowing that we are lying or knowing the we are telling the truth?
Well sure, if you start out with the given premise that breaks the laws of physics as we know them, of course you are going to conclude that there is something beyond "mere atoms". Suppose we know that the sky is actually green, even though all of physics says it should be blue. Clearly our map (aka the laws of physics as we currently know them) doesn't match the territory (the stuff that's causing our observations). But it doesn't seem to be necessary to resort to such wild hypotheses, because it is still quite plausible that consciousness emerges from "mere atoms". We just don't know the details of how yet, but we're working on it. If someday we have a full understanding of the brain, and there doesn't seem to be anything there to give rise to consciousness, then such wild speculation will be warranted. Today though, the substance dualism argument has no evidence behind it, and therefore an infinitesimally small probability of being true.