michael_vassar3 comments on Zombie Responses - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 April 2008 12:42AM

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Comment author: michael_vassar3 06 April 2008 05:19:34AM 5 points [-]

Richard: Old-fashioned radical skepticism is only easily refutable within a context of "adequate epistemological theory" that also refutes epiphenomenalism. Once you invoke bridging laws at all it is entirely arbitrary what sort of consciousness they form a bridge to from physicality. As an epiphenomenalist you are *already* assuming the informational equivalent of an demon by asserting bridging laws. It's just that you are a) calling it a "natural law" though it looks ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the sort of natural laws discovered by scientists, and b) assuming it to be a truthful demon.