On 22 Oct 2012, at 22:55, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 10/22/2012 4:12 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 10/22/2012 3:13 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
C3PO would be a phylosophical zombie. It would not?
Hi Alberto,
C3PO did refer to itself (in the Star Wars movies) , so no, it
would not be.
Hi Alberto,
After reading my own post again and thinking a bit more, I
realized that we could never be sure if C3PO was or was not a p-
zombie! It seems that p-zombiehood is just as 1p definite and 3p
mysterious, or indefinite, as consciousness! The point is that 1p
content can not be shared. We can represent what it might be and
speculate endlessly about it, but we can never know it, other than
the 1p content that we have of our own. Our discussion in Everything
list seems to revolve around various different ideas that center on
speculations about 1p.
But you agree that your own 1p is not a speculation, OK?
Put in another way you agree that you are not a zombie, OK?
About C3P0, I don't think that the ability to refer to oneself is
enough to have 1p, you need universality, or sub-universality
(perhaps). Even multiple self- reference don't lead to universality
(despite + and * does!).
Royer, a student of John Case, wrote a beautiful book on the
combination of control structure and below and above sub-universality
(a cousin of the notion of universality)
Concerning C3P0, the consciousness might be the "trivial" one of the
universal mind (the mind of the unspecified universal machine, with
indeterminacy = all pieces of computations), or a genuinely self-
referring program relatively to our most probable own computations. If
I remember well, C3P0, was a genuine companion of some sort.
1p is not a speculation on oneself. Any 3p is, strictly speaking.
And if we are not solipsist, it is a quasi axiom for at least us the
humans, but I extend it for many animals, and remain open and cautious
for everything else.
Zombie-like questioning happens in real life, when some people come
back from comatose state, about which different people disagree if the
person was conscious or not, and then when they witnessed or pretended
that they were conscious, or that they got moment of consciousness.
Absence of behavior is not a guaranty of absence of consciousness, as
the notion of dream illustrates.
Zombie can exist, logically, because presence of behavior is also not
a guaranty of presence of consciousness, for short period, and the
notion of long period is vague.
Some musician, which by circumstances have to play the same musics
repetitively, and can have their bad days, can "play like a zombie",
thinking about something else and letting the "automatic pilot" to
drive the show. Many people drive their cars like that. They are not p-
zombie, as they have still a consciousness, even if still in
dreamland, but they are zombie with respect to their behavior. Is the
automatic pilot completely unconscious? I bet in some case. Non
anticipated event, in such case, can awake them to reality.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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