Are there philosophical zombies?

A philosophical zombie is a being physically indistinguishable from an actual or possible human being, inhabiting a possible world where the physical laws are identical to the laws of the actual world, but which completely lacks consciousness.

Who created the zombie argument?

1. The idea of zombies. Descartes held that non-human animals are automata: their behavior is wholly explicable in terms of physical mechanisms. But human behavior (he argued) could not be explained in that way.

How does the philosophical zombie differ from the Hollywood zombie?

A philosophical zombie, as opposed to a Hollywood zombie, is an exact physical duplicate of a human being that lacks consciousness. And the reason it behaves just like you is that the physical workings of its brain are indiscernible from the physical workings of your own brain.

What is Jackson’s knowledge argument?

On Jackson’s version of the knowledge argument, the assumption that Mary knows the complete physical truth about the world does not guarantee that she will be able to figure out the complete truth about human color vision. His reasoning involves the idea of the complete physical truth.

What is the philosophical zombie thought experiment?

A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. Such arguments have been criticized by many philosophers.

Do zombies have a conscience?

They may not be conscious in the same way humans are, but they are aware of their surroundings and respond to their environment.

What is the knowledge argument in philosophy?

The knowledge argument aims to establish that conscious experience involves non-physical properties. It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being.

What is qualia Epiphenomenalism?

What It Means to Say Qualia are Epiphenomenal. Physicalism assumes that mental events have a genuine causal role. For example, according to the physicalist picture, C-fiber stimulation actually does something in the body; it causes other bodily events. Physicalists also usually assume that qualia function causally.

Does Conceivability entail possibility Chalmers?

Conceivability is prima facie evidence of metaphysical possibility, but it does not entail metaphysical possibility. To endorse ‘Defeasible Modal Rationalism’ is to say that p’s being (ideally, positively, primarily) conceivable constitutes a merely prima facie reason to believe that p is metaphysically possible.

What is Qualia Epiphenomenalism?

What do philosophers mean by zombies?

So, the first thing to know is that when philosophers use the term zombie they’re referring to philosophical zombies, or p-zombies, which are a hypothetical being constructed for the sake of a thought experiment.

What is the zombie argument?

The zombie argument is a version of general modal arguments against physicalism such as that of Saul Kripke. Further such arguments were notably advanced in the 1970s by Thomas Nagel (1970; 1974) and Robert Kirk (1974) but the general argument was most famously developed in detail by David Chalmers in The Conscious Mind (1996).

Could a zombie be a sound refutation of physicalism?

Proponents of the argument, such as philosopher David Chalmers, argue that since a zombie is defined as physiologically indistinguishable from human beings, even its logical possibility would be a sound refutation of physicalism, because it would establish the existence of conscious experience as a further fact.

What epistemological difficulties do zombies raise?

Finally, zombies raise epistemological difficulties: they reinstate the ‘other minds’ problem. 1. The idea of zombies 2. Zombies and physicalism 3. The conceivability argument for the possibility of zombies