On 1/19/2015 9:31 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 19 January 2015 at 14:01, David Nyman <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
But if zombies were *logically* impossible, as I believe Dennett for
example claims,
then it would be analytically true, not a contingent fact.
I'd like to amplify here a little in light of my longer response to you about comp and
the Hard Problem. Dennett's public and oft-repeated position is that physics has primacy
over (for example) computation or logic. In other words, he believes that before
something can be deemed computational or logical, it must first be physical. My point is
that, given this prior commitment, he actually has no basis for any claim that zombies
are *logically* impossible unless they are first *physically* impossible.
?? Everything that exists must be physically possible is compatible with everything that
exists must also be logically possible and most people think that nomologically possible
is a subset of logically possible. So logically impossible implies physically
impossible. I think you're confused about Dennett.
However, the fact is (as notoriously argued by Chalmers, for example) that we have
precisely zero evidence that zombies are physically impossible. In point of fact they
would appear to be physically *inevitable*, given that the system of physical relation
appears (very convincingly) to be both causally sufficient and causally closed.
Being causally closed would be an argument against libertarian free-will, but I don't see
why it's an argument against consciousness.
Brent
The conjunction of this inconvenient fact with a prior commitment to physical naturalism
often seems to result in a kind of cognitive dissonance. In Dennett's case this leads to
a denial that consciousness can be distinguished from our 'judgements' about it (i.e. it
is an 'illusion') which is superficially at least consistent, though ultimately
self-defeating. Smolin's unwillingness to deny consciousness, by contrast, pushes him
into frank inconsistency.
We need something better than either of these positions.
David
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