Two of my favorite bloggers, Richard Chapell and Eliezer Yudkowsky, recently duked it out over reductionism and zombies. (The zombie issue in a nutshell: supposedly, it's just obvious that we could have people physically identical to us but not conscious, so dualism is true). Richard started out with Arguing with Eliezer, part I and Arguing with Eliezer, part II, then Zombie Rationality. Eliezer carried his part of the discussion in Hands vs. Fingers, Zombies! Zombies?, Zombie Responses, and The Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle. The discussion mostly took place at Eliezer's, and Richard complained his opponents there had nothing but "mere ridicule and sloganeering."
In spite of agreeing with Richard about reductionism, in the narrow disputes that got raised, I'm with Eliezer. For one, the idea of conceivability Richard appealed to is weird--it's a sense which entails possibility, but if you take that use of the term, we have no defense against the worry that we often think we're conceiving of something when we are not, in fact, doing so. Yes, I realize an awful lot of philosophers have used "conceivability" in Richard's way, but just because philosophers do it doesn't mean its a good idea.
Richard's other line was to ask for a proof that zombies are impossible. But this is silly. A useful parallel case is that of "vital-force zombies," imaginary people physically identical to us only not alive. In the 19th century such an idea might have seemed possible, but the inability to provide some conceptual disproof didn't make vitalism right. Really, 'nuff said.
If you want to argue for dualism, appeals to esoteric possibilities don't do much good. The way that makes sense, I think, is to appeal to our direct acquaintance with consciousness, and point out that we have there something just not covered in our current theories of physics.
8 comments:
Your 'nuff said' is a bit quick -- see here for discussion of the vitalism analogy. (It's not hard to show the contradiction in a world that's physically identical to ours but lacking in life. Vitalists would grant this: they instead deny that a world without "vital force" could be physically identical to ours, since they thought the vital force was necessary to move physical bodies around in certain ways.)
The broader issue of conceivability and possibility is too complicated for a blog comment, but you're welcome to glance over my honours thesis on the topic if you want to get a sense of the other side.
It'll be a few days before I can respond, quick question: your first link has a further link on Kripke and physicalism, but I thought I'd saw some other post on the same subject--is there one, or am I imagining things? If there is, a link would be nice.
I think Richards position is well designed from a defensive position and that that makes a lot of sense if one is a epiphenomenalist afterall what a epiphenomenalist argues is not supposed to be effected by his qualia!
maybe he can play defense and you can do offense :)
BTW I read the thesis, not much to say, except that I think philosophy would benefit from cross-pollination with other fields (and I know Richard is a bit negative on that), but I'm just a very tiny bit proud of myself.
And this is why I hate the field of philosophy of mind and would love to find a way to push people like David Chalmers out of work - it disregards neuroscience so much. (They sound like fucking fundamentalists, I swear.)
Consciousness is nebulous. Research into it is piecemeal - instead of looking at philosophy of mind, read the work of neuroscience researchers who do things about it - I HEAVILY suggest reading work by Tristan Bekinschtein, who is probably one of the most brilliant young consciousness researchers I'm aware of (he's a relatively newly minted PhD). Physically identical to us implies that they would HAVE to be conscious because our physiology gives rise to our consciousness, and we are all aware that dualism is full of shit.
There is honestly no argument that stands up to the most stringent examination that says there is something about consciousness that is not covered in neuroscience or cannot be explained by it.
I call bullshit on this one .
Kldickson, I suspect that you don't actually understand what 'dualism' means in this context. (See here.)
Hallq - I can't think of any.
No, I do, I think.
My problem with dualism here is that saying that consciousness goes beyond merely material properties is a rather problematic statement.
First of all, define 'physical'. I equate 'physical' with 'what arises from the natural world, atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and organisms and other constituent elements of life'. (Though this is talking from a strictly scientific standpoint; Chris, if you want to chime in with your mix of scientific and philosophical background, please jump in.)
Second of all, perhaps you are not aware of the extent to which our bodies do, in fact, perform certain mental phenomena. Case in point: the 'god helmet' experiment by Michael Persinger showed perceptions which were interpreted by religious people as spiritual experiences and by nonreligious people as merely a trick of the brain were generated by zapping the temporal lobe.
Consciousness is, strictly, a mental state, which can be changed by fiddling with various parts of the brain to induce other mental states. Consciousness is not a thing. Yet consciousness encompasses a whole host of functions. Again, these are merely brain functions.
If these zombies were completely physically similar to humans, I reiterate: they would be conscious.
There is no greater sense of possibility outside the nomological; for one, there is no way to prove it, and I certainly don't expect philosophers to do so - if you know what Russell's teapot is, a similar analogy may be made here to the existence of anything outside the nomological, unless, of course, we stumble upon any evidence which by all explanations is NOT nomological.
In addition to the 'matter' of the brain, which I take philosophyetc's interpretation to mean 'the cells comprising the brain', there is its electrophysiology and its neurochemistry and its interaction with the rest of the body.
In short, dualism makes no bloody sense.
No, you definitely don't, because Chalmers and I agree that consciousness arises from the brain, as explained in my post. (And yes, I'm well aware of the 'god helmet' experiment.) We also agree that given the actual laws of nature, i.e. in the actual world, any physical duplicate of me would also be conscious. (Of course.)
So, the dispute is not what you think it is. Dualism makes "no bloody sense" to you for the simple reason that you don't understand what philosophers of mind are talking about. In light of this, it is perhaps premature for you to be advocating that they lose their jobs.
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