MagnetoHydroDynamics 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."
But isn't it the point that Science specifically IS actually going around saying things about subjective consciousness? Namely that apparently it is a causal result of the way your cerebral neurons interact, to paraphrase Yudkowsky "Consciousness is made of atoms." You cannot take away consciousness and still have the same thing. Consciousness-testing is a one place function.
Quine's view of philosophy, which appears to be generally accepted here on LW, says that ultimately all philosophy is psychology, so is it not a better and more productive idea to ask "Why do we talk so passionately of this strange property called consciousness?"
This is not correct. Science is not making any claims about subjective consciousness. It makes claims about other meanings of the term "consciousness", but about subjective phenomenology it is silent or incoherent. For example, the claim "Consciousness is made of atoms" is just silliness. What type of atoms? Boron? Carbon? Hydrogen? And in virtue of what feature of atoms, is red the way it is?
Your consciousness is made of atoms. Not a single kind of atom, but many different kinds. I cannot recite the entirety of the human biochemistry from heart, but I am sure it is readily available somewhere in peer reviewed publications. The fact of the matter is that your consciousness is a program running on the specialized wetware that is your brain. It might be possible to run your consciousness in a microanatomical computersimulation, but a microana sim is still run on a computer made of atoms.
Now iformation theoretically it must be possible to say something about this consciousness property that some progams exhibit and others don't, or maybe there isn't a hard and fast point where consciousness is defined and it is in fact a continuous spectrum. I don't know, but if I am to bet I say the latter.
There must also then be some way of making definite statements about how that conscious program will act if it is copied from one medium (human) to another (microanatomical sim).
The information theoretical facts does not change that the computer or the brain that runs the conscious program is still a real physical thing. So we can with science say something about the computation substrate which is made of atoms, about the consciousness property which is information theory, and about the nature of copying a mind which is also information theory.
Now, are you telling me that information theory, chemsitry and electrical engineering are not sciences?
If you read this mini-sequence and say you can imagine a Zombie Mary in this kind of detail, then I declare your intuition broken. By which I mean, we'd have to drop the topic or ask if one type of intuition has more reason to work (given what science tells us).