Philosophical Zombies and Justifying Conciousness

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by m0rl0ck, Oct 12, 2002.

  1. m0rl0ck Consume! Conform! Obey! Registered Senior Member

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    Anybody familiar with this concept? Its new to me.

    http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/zombies.html

    "It is philosophical zombies that I'm most interested in here, since I'm a philosopher and they raise very interesting issues. The sort I'm most concerned with are zombies that are physically and behaviorally identical to a conscious human, but lack any conscious experience."

    And this is the most interesting part of the idea:

    "And it can even be used to argue against materialism. If there is a possible world which is just like this one except that it contains zombies, then that seems to imply that the existence of consciousness is a further, nonphysical fact about our world. To put it metaphorically, even after determining the physical facts about our world, God had to "do more work" to ensure that we weren't zombies."

    So the question is why conciousness? The physical world is obviously complex enough so that an organism could function without it? Whats the payoff?
     
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  3. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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    It is a new concept to me as well. I am very interested in
    reading more about these philosophical zombies but it will
    have to wait till later. Right now I am gonna check out the
    inside of my eyelids before I turn into a zombie.

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  5. m0rl0ck Consume! Conform! Obey! Registered Senior Member

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    Essays on the Problem of Conciosness

    found some essays:

    "This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery."

    "To explain experience, we need a new approach. The usual explanatory methods of cognitive science and neuroscience do not suffice. These methods have been developed precisely to explain the performance of cognitive functions, and they do a good job of it. But as these methods stand, they are only equipped to explain the performance of functions. When it comes to the hard problem, the standard approach has nothing to say.
    4 Some case-studies"

    http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/facing.html

    Also:

    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Py104/searle.prob.html




    I havent finished them yet, so if this is idea is taken into account in either essay I didnt see it, but why couldnt conciousness be a pre-existing condition of the universe and a sufficiently sophisticated physical brain (when it appears) simply the means of its expression? In the same way that water wont boil into gas until heat is applied?

    Both essays start out assuming a preexisting physical universe and this seems to me a little niave. Couldnt you equally start out assuming a preexisting conciousness?
    After all theres no experience of a physical universe without a conciousness to experience it.

    Chalmers gives up on the reductive approach:
    "It is a remarkable fact that reductive methods - methods that explain a high-level phenomenon wholly in terms of more basic physical processes - work well in so many domains. In a sense, one can explain most biological and cognitive phenomena on the cheap, in that these phenomena are seen as automatic consequences of more fundamental processes. It would be wonderful if reductive methods could explain experience, too; I hoped for a long time that they might. Unfortunately, there are systematic reasons why these methods must fail. Reductive methods are successful in most domains because what needs explaining in those domains are structures and functions, and these are the kind of thing that a physical account can entail. When it comes to a problem over and above the explanation of structures and functions, these methods are impotent."

    Im wadeing through the rest of the chalmers essay now. Any thoughts from anybody else would be appreciated.


    An alternative for the explanation of conciousness that chalmers arrives at includes:
    "A mouse has a simpler information-processing structure than a human, and has correspondingly simpler experience; perhaps a thermostat, a maximally simple information processing structure, might have maximally simple experience? Indeed, if experience is truly a fundamental property, it would be surprising for it to arise only every now and then; most fundamental properties are more evenly spread. In any case, this is very much an open question, but I believe that the position is not as implausible as it is often thought to be. "

    And:

    "Once a fundamental link between information and experience is on the table, the door is opened to some grander metaphysical speculation concerning the nature of the world. For example, it is often noted that physics characterizes its basic entities only extrinsically, in terms of their relations to other entities, which are themselves characterized extrinsically, and so on. The intrinsic nature of physical entities is left aside. Some argue that no such intrinsic properties exist, but then one is left with a world that is pure causal flux (a pure flow of information) with no properties for the causation to relate. If one allows that intrinsic properties exist, a natural speculation given the above is that the intrinsic properties of the physical - the properties that causation ultimately relates - are themselves phenomenal properties. We might say that phenomenal properties are the internal aspect of information. This could answer a concern about the causal relevance of experience - a natural worry, given a picture on which the physical domain is causally closed, and on which experience is supplementary to the physical. The informational view allows us to understand how experience might have a subtle kind of causal relevance in virtue of its status as the intrinsic nature of the physical. This metaphysical speculation is probably best ignored for the purposes of developing a scientific theory, but in addressing some philosophical issues it is quite suggestive. "


    Does this seem to anyone else like the field of conciousness theories of eastern religion?

    I think therefore the universe?
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2002
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  7. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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    I think therefore the universe?

    I think, therefore I have an opinion.
    I think we can think too much. As I
    see it, the old saying everything in
    moderation
    applies here as well.

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    _________________

    Metaphysics:
    the part of philosophy that is about under-
    standing existence and knowledge.

    Source:
    Cambridge International Dictionary Of English

    What it means to a layman:
    somewhere between "crystal healing" and
    "tree hugging" in the Dewey decimal system

    What it means to a philosopher:
    No! How many times do I have to tell you? Nothing
    whatever to do with this New Age stuff! Now move
    my book away from the stand containing Shirley
    MacLaine, or I shall be very upset.

    Source:
    A Non-Philosopher's Guide To Philosophical Terms


    zombie: A being that behaves like us and may
    share our functional organization and even,
    perhaps, our neurophysiological makeup without
    conscious experiences or qualia.
    See: consciousness.

    zzzz: The mental state most often encountered by
    undergrads in philosophy of mind courses.

    Source:
    Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind
     
  8. m0rl0ck Consume! Conform! Obey! Registered Senior Member

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    415

    Ok

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    But what do you think of the actual essay?

    The guy seems to make a pretty good case for experience and conciousness being a fundemental property and not being subject to reductive explanation. To me fundemental means that you cant remove that quality and have the thing retain its identity.
    If conciousness is a fundemental quality of the universe, couldnt the question of explaining conciousness also be posed as the question of explaining physical existense?


    Also take a look at some of the responses to the essay:

    http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/moving.html

    So other than making fun of my admittly hyperbolic statement about the universe, whats your opinion of chalmers ideas?
     
  9. hi yumyum here im on my friends account im drunk right now this also new to me sounds cool tho. more thoughts later.
     
  10. Mr. G reality.sys Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,191
    Philosophical Zombies and Justifying Conciousness: Anybody familiar with this concept?

    Also known as "Garbage in, garbage out."

    "Running in place."

    "Motion, not action."

    "Confusion, not clarity."

    The justificatiom of consciousness should be more than the ability to waste it on the exercise of pointless speculation.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2002
  11. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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    2,007
    m0rl0ck: Other than the link posted below, I don't
    have anything else to add at the moment. I would
    need a lot more time to read all the material that is
    available in order to feel comfortable in offering an
    opinion.

    Anyway, here is the link: Revenge of the Zombies
     
  12. Hoth Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    383
    Even though I don't agree with physical reductionism, zombies are a non-starter argument. The requirement is that the zombie be indistinguishable from non-zombies, including under brain scans. Fact is, there's a clear correlation between measurements we call neuron firings and experience we call thought -- a correlation proven again and again. This isn't amazing random coincidence, it sure isn't god setting up distinct things to coincide, and there's no reason to argue it being cause and effect. What we call neuron firings is simply a representation of the relations involved in actual thought, arrived at through perceptual processes. If you have thought then you can chart neuron firings, and if you can chart neuron firings you have thought, therefore you don't have zombies. So much for Chalmers.
     
  13. SoLiDUS OMGWTFBBQ Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,593
    So we start from assumptions... NOT GOOD. Observing a box from
    the outside won't tell you what's inside until you can actually look.
    Yes, I'm aware we can assume based on packaging but let us
    assume there might be anything in the box: seemsayin' ??

    Bah. Bollocks...

    You'll never be able to tell whether they lack consciousness or
    simply display a basic one, devoid of the complexity seen in usual
    humans.

    When I think zombie I think "braiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiins..............." :bugeye:
     
  14. machaon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    734
    A Reply

    What is the payoff? That depends. Do you mean the payoff for the individual organism? Do you mean the payoff for the species? Or do you mean the payoff for the biosphere? Of course there all connected, but do we know exactly how? Anyway, I have digressed. One of the ways that I see an immediate payoff for conciousness is that it allows for extra-genetic information to be passed from one generation to the next. The higher the DEGREE of conciousness an organism possesses, the more information that can passed from one generation to the next independant of the expressed DNA. Chimpanzees are never born with the knowledge of how to use a stick to fish termites from a hole in the ground. They all have the base intelligence to master the skill, but they are not born with it. They will not master the skill in the same way a beaver will "know" how to build a dam. They are taught. Conciousness is a catalyst for extra-genetic knowledge and its transferance to subsequent generarations. HOW ADAPTIVE IS THAT?
     
  15. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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  16. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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    2,007
    When I think zombie, I think ...
    ROCK AND ROLL!

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  17. m0rl0ck Consume! Conform! Obey! Registered Senior Member

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    Very adaptive

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    and I am perfectly ready to accept the notion that chimpanzees have conciousness.
    So in this view your thinking that culture (an intersubjective space) is due to some kind of genetic adaptation?
    Or are you going that far?
    What about social insects? They exibhit extremly complicated behavoiurs and communication and are highly successful and dont (as far as can be demonstrated

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    )
    have conciousness. I dont see how highly complex and adaptive behaviours would necessarily require conciousness (as in subjective intention and feeling).
     
  18. Rowen Registered Senior Member

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    102
    I almost glimpsed the light

    I was frightened by the cliff I faced with the question "Why do we have conciousness?". For a second I looked to the simple answer of it must have been the spiritual workings of higher powers. Then the independant part of my mind free from social indoctrination saved my soul by pointing out that like everything else it was probably another result of a naturaly occuring accident or mutation. For when this Earth was created some early microrganism mutated to include higher synapses seperate from simple stimuli response systems. However, I wish with all my soul that there was a higher purpose to it all. Finally, the only thing that comforts me is the beauty in a poets words or the simple wanting melancholy in an opera singers voice.

    Then again maybe we gave up paradise when we learned to cry.
     
  19. machaon Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    734
    A reply

    No, I think that concsiousness IS the definition of intersubjective space. The universe is a mass of energy, it is our concsiousness that creates and defines the boundries in which those energies shape our behaviour. Our minds are a product of DNA. The environment pressures our DNA to synthasize proteins which will create vehicles that are conducive to replication. Therefore our DNA will tend to synthasize vehicles (our bodies) that are neurologicaly complex enough to interpret those external energies in a manner that shapes our behaviour in a way that is adaptive for replication. Or something like that.
     
  20. m0rl0ck Consume! Conform! Obey! Registered Senior Member

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    I dont see why we have to bring higher powers into this. The chalmers essay above just postulates that conciousness is a fundemental property with no reductive explanation, similar to matter, a fundemental property of the system. Quantum mechanics recognizes the importantance of the observer. I know that an idea like this puts the materialists panties in a twist, but the materialists have no real explanation for conciousness except "wait till we know more" , which seems to require a faith not unlike the christians demand with their "wait till judgement day and all will be made clear". If conciousness were a fundemental property it would seem that we would have pointers to that effect and we do, again quantum mechanics.
    Also the "wait till we know more and we'll explain conciusness away" arguement doesnt take a crucial fact about the universe into account; imagine the known as a circle of white against a black backround, black being the unknown. As the circle of the known increases in size so does the perimeter of darkness, the more that we know, the more there is to know, this is necessarily true in an infinite universe.
    Also at the perimeter of that circle is where hypothesis are formed, hypothesis formation is a subjective process.
     
  21. m0rl0ck Consume! Conform! Obey! Registered Senior Member

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    415

    Again pleas with more detail?

    I meant intersubjective as in shared. For instance one conciousness is just a lonely being, when you have two, symbols are created to communicate between them and you have culture, a shared subjective space.
     
  22. Simona Registered Member

    Messages:
    4
    Zombies?

    Hi, i am new here and am amazed to find a forum of people who think about these things. I have been alone in my world where it seems no one thinks for themselves and i feel like i have sort of found a home.... anyway enough.

    On the topic of Zombies, i have written about this idea. It sounds like what i refer to as 'Lemmings'. Most of the human species walk around with their eyes closed, they follow the 'norm', do what they are supposed to do and don't really question their own existence. I believe it is important to know the 'self' and this requires a lot of inner work through free writing and finding out what is important in life for your spiritual growth. It involves getting back to basics and exploring your consciousness. This is much harder to do in our time now than i believe it used to be. This is because we have so many destractions in society that dictate to us what we need to do, have and be in life which we are brainwashed into believing that is all there is to life. This is good for the few that control society because they want us to be zombies. Then we are controlled. Being truly consciousness and self aware makes us truly powerful in a way that no amount of money can. We can then determine our true purpose in this life and can move towards that. We can discover our true will and following that we can learn what we need from this lifetime whilst also experiencing satisfaction and happiness that it was our will and not that of others, that we are not living under others expectations. In not being aware (or conscious) we do not take full responsibility for the growth of our soul and instead chose to be led. I look at others who are led or who do things because they feel they 'have to' and if what they are doing is for others only and is not also their choice or want, then they are not happy or feel stuck in situations and they either do not reach the full potential of their soul, or they realise it when they are dying or at the end of their lives and then have limited time to really live, live their will and act out of love. Many of those who are not conscious or do not have the ability to become aware act out of fear.
    Life and its lessons are hard but if we act out of love for ourselves and then each other then this gives us the balance between the hard lessons of growth and the beautiful experience of love and it gives life its sweetness and a freedom that makes the whole journey one that is lived to its fullest potential.
    I am glad to be a concious, aware individual. It makes life challenging in that i must make my own decisions based on my will. It would be easier to follow the crowd and do what is the 'norm' and not question. But i would not grow and learn as an individual.
    To not be conscious is to waste life.
    To see the purpose of our soul and to move in that direction is to see the purpose of life.
    If we do not give ourselves purpose then we have no reason to exist. If we have no higher purpose to our existence then there is no point to life.
     
  23. SoLiDUS OMGWTFBBQ Registered Senior Member

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    Rock on sista

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