You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

jkaufman comments on Zombies Redacted - Less Wrong Discussion

33 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 July 2016 08:16PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (165)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: jkaufman 12 July 2016 07:58:36PM 1 point [-]

Zombie-ism is not the same as dualism. Descartes thought there was a body-substance and a wholly different kind of mind-substance, but Descartes also thought that the mind-substance was a causally active principle, interacting with the body-substance, controlling our speech and behavior. Subtracting out the mind-substance from the human would leave a traditional zombie, of the lurching and groaning sort.

And though the Hebrew word for the innermost soul is N'Shama, that-which-hears, I can't recall hearing a rabbi arguing for the possibility of zombies. Most rabbis would probably be aghast at the idea that the divine part which God breathed into Adam doesn't actually do anything.