On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12 February 2015 at 13:44, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> > So your saying the presence (or absence) of consciousness does result > in > >> > physicaly detectable differences in behavior? This is counter to the > >> > belief > >> > of epiphenominalism, where consciousness is take-it-or-leave-it > without > >> > resulting in any physical differences. > >> > >> If zombies are impossible then what can be shown is that IF a certain > >> being is conscious THEN it is impossible to make a zombie equivalent. > >> But this cannot be used to show that consciousness exists either > >> generally or in a particular case. > > > > > > Okay but I fail to see the connection of this statement to the one I made > > above. > > The relevance is that I'm not saying that consciousness results in > physically detectable differences in behaviour, even though I am > saying that a certain type of behaviour may necessarily be associated > with consciousness. It's a bit subtle - it might seem contradictory at > first glance. > But then logically, starting from: certain behaviors -> consciousness you get: not consciousness -> not certain behaviors Which means that consciousness tests are in theory possible, and non-conscious zombies that exhibit those *certain behavior*s are prohibited. > > >> >> I invoke Chalmers' > >> >> fading qualia argument, which shows that if consciousness were > >> >> contingent rather than necessary it would be possible to make partial > >> >> zombies. Partial zombies are absurd; if they are not absurd then we > >> >> may as well say consciousness does not exist. > >> >> > >> > > >> > If partial zombies are absurd, then so are full zombies. > >> > Epiphenominalism > >> > makes full zombies logically (if not physically by your definition) > >> > possible. Therefore I also find epihpenominalism absurd as the idea of > >> > partial zombies. > >> > >> I agree that full zombies are also absurd. There is a potential > >> problem here with the terms "absurd", "physically possible", > >> "logically possible", "conceptually possible". I think zombies are > >> conceptually possible, but I think they are logically impossible. I > >> don't see why you say epiphenomenalism (as opposed to some other > >> theory?) makes zombies logically possible. > > > > > > Epihpenominalism makes zombies not only logically possible, but > physically > > undetectable (because consciousness is presumed to have no effects, so > > whether it is present or not can never be ascertained). Under > > epihpenominalism, no physical text, measurement, or experiment, could > ever > > detect the presence of consciousness is some presumably conscious entity. > > Therefore, it could be a zombie, and no physical test, experiment, or > > measurement could ever (not even in theory) separate a zombie from a > > non-zombie. This all follows directly from the standard definition of > > epihpenominalism. Maybe there is no proof of another being being > conscious > > or not, but that in itself is different from epiphenominalism, which > further > > supposes that the existence of consciousness has no physical consequences > > nor yields any third-personal detectible differences in outcome or > behavior. > > Nevertheless, these two statements are compatible: > > 1. There is no way to determine if a being is conscious or not. > 2. Given that a particular being is conscious, there could be no > zombie equivalent of that being. > > My assertion is that neither of the above two statements is or implies epiphenominalism. Epiphenominalism is the stronger statement that consciousness has no effects, and so that presence or absence of consciousness is dispensable and therefore it would make no difference to the future evolution of this universe if on next Thursday all conscious sensations disappeared entirely. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
