« Too Much? | Main | Nature and Super-Nature »
Zombie Attack!
Unless the terminology has changed a lot since I graduated two years ago, I don't see how one could possibly argue that consciousness exists because "dual strategy beings can outcompete zombies. Yes parts of the brain are designed for rapid, single purpose use, as you might find in a zombie. But other more integrative and judgmental parts require more powerful central processing units, namely your conscious mind. In his view consciousness is not just an epiphenomenal feeling, as in much analytical philosophy, but rather it is a functional set of qualia." Zombies are (in the relevant philosophical sense) functionally indistinguishable from conscious beings by definition. That's the whole point of zombies.
If you think consciousness exists because it has a distinct functional role in human (and, perhaps, other sorts of) behavior (and I do!) then you have to think that zombies are impossible. And they are impossible, so it's all for the best. Or has there been some kind of philosophy of mind / cognitive science terminological revolution, and now zombies aren't functional isomorphs of normal people anymore? But if they aren't, then what are they? I have a hard time believing a professional in this field would simply get confused about this.
May 17, 2005 | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345160fd69e200d8341fadcc53ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Zombie Attack!:
Comments
First vampires, now zombies?
BTW, how DID that vampire thing work out? Have you killed it yet?
Posted by: Al | May 17, 2005 2:56:09 PM
Zombies are (in the relevant philosophical sense) functionally indistinguishable from conscious beings by definition.
Their tendency to work as investment bankers is the big giveaway.
Posted by: PaulC | May 17, 2005 2:59:16 PM
I'm going to stick with Turing on this one. Functionally indistinguishable beings are by definition equivalent. The idea that you can divorce consciousness from observable intelligent behavior is unscientific. It could have some validity, but until you come up with a falsifiable assertion and an experiment, it's not worth a Ronald Reagan dime. Wasn't this the reality based community?
Posted by: PaulC | May 17, 2005 3:02:56 PM
Assuming Koch's views have been fairly reported (which is admitedly a bit doubtful), I think this may an instance of a phenomena that Dennett has pointed out: cognitive scientists misapplying the principle of charity by assuming philosophers are talking about something non-crazy. The philosopher's zombie is indeed a functional isomorph of a conscious being, and I agree with Matt that we should not countenance such creatures of darkness. However, cognitive scientists often do use the term to denote a being that is functionally deficient in some way--Koch is not the only one. A lot of cognitive scientists fail to discuss philosopher's zombies because, pace David Chalmers, there is no way to scientifically investigate the difference between such beings and conscious people.
Can we go back to social security now?
Posted by: David | May 17, 2005 3:22:43 PM
Actually, I was just thinking this morning that I missed the days when Matt used to blog philosophy. So keep it up, Matt.
Posted by: J. Ellenberg | May 17, 2005 3:24:13 PM
Their tendency to work as investment bankers is the big giveaway.
"Dawn of the Chets"!
More seriously, I think David's right, that a strictly defined zombie is, by definition, completely uninteresting, which leads one to wonder why it was invented in the first place. To stir freshman-survey students, perhaps.
So what good is a concept which can't be usefully discussed except in a defective manner?
Posted by: Anderson | May 17, 2005 3:30:24 PM
Based on the tiny bit of exposition over at Marginal Revolution, I think it's at least possible that Matt is being unfair. Koch's claim seems to be that zombies aren't possible because functional isomorphism between zombies and conscious beings isn't possible.
The argument seems to be: (1) For a zombie to be possible it must be possible to have a functional analog of a conscious being which does not possess qualia; (2) many of the functions that conscious beings perform run through qualia and couldn't do otherwise; (3) from 2 it follows that it is impossible to have a functional analog of a conscious being which does not possess qualia; Hence, (4) zombies aren't possible.
I don't really know if that's Koch's argument, but that's an argument that someone like Koch could make.
Posted by: zwichenzug | May 17, 2005 3:33:28 PM
I agree with J(ordan) Ellenberg: please do keep blogging on philosophical topics! It's fun, and adds a lot to the blog. Life isn't all politics.
SF
Posted by: Stephen Frug | May 17, 2005 4:05:50 PM
Lately, I've been struggling with the view that we all actually ARE zombies, and that we believe that we have subjective experiences, but we actually don't. Of course, most eliminativists would gag on my use of the word "believe," but... uh.... I'll just say we say we have subjective experiences, but those statements are wrong.
I keep thinking, "this view is crazy." But it seems to make so much sense when I think about it.
Posted by: Julian Elson | May 17, 2005 4:12:27 PM
The zombie argument has always been a dead-end. Either you think consciousness could be epiphenomenal or you don't. If you do, zombies seem perfectly plausible. If you don't, they don't. The anti-zombie crowd will say "why should consciousness be considered a special case exempted from empiricism?" and the epiphenomenalists will quite reasonably point out that consciousness seems to be some sort of special case, so why not?
For me a good analogy is to imagine a perfectly efficient incandescent lightbulb. Can you imagine a functional bulb that doesn't also generate heat? I can. It makes sense. There's a good, scientific answer to whether such a thing is possible, and it involves thermodynamics and superconductors and all kinds of things about which I'm hopelessly out of my league. But the crucial point is that you cannot derive the necessary scientific knowledge from the lightbulb thought experiment. Going from the principles to the answer is a one-way operation. The lightbulb is just an appeal to intuition. Until we know the laws underlying consciousness, we won't be able to answer the zombie question. Personally Libet's experiments strongly suggest to me that qualia are mostly if not entirely epiphenomenal, but I'd hardly call it conclusive.
I'm disappointed to see this excerpt from Koch. I've liked his short articles, was glad to see someone anxious to tackle consciousness-related experimentation, and was looking forward to (eventually) tackling his new book. Hopefully it's better than this excerpt implies.
Posted by: tom | May 17, 2005 4:14:42 PM
zwichenzug, isn't the whole point of qualia that they are undetectable subjective experiences with no physical effects? E.g., the subjective and ineffable "redness" the you see when you look at something red?
A philosopher's zombie, by definition, has all aspects of cognition except for qualia. It looks like a human being, acts like a human being, but "nobody's home", so to speak--nobody's there to experience "red". There's just a bunch of neurons which correspond to "red".
On a related note, I have zero respect for people like Penrose and Searle, who claim that (1) there is no such thing as a soul and (2) a machine could never think. If you rule out the soul, human beings are machines, and no mystic quantum gibberish is going to let you escape that.
This is one subject in which computer scientists are qualified intellectuals. :-) We take entire courses in what machines can, in principle, compute, and much of what appears in philosophical journals on this subject is sheer nonsense.
Posted by: Eric | May 17, 2005 4:27:16 PM
Lately, I've been struggling with the view that we all actually ARE zombies, and that we believe that we have subjective experiences, but we actually don't.
I'm certain I'm not a zombie right now, but I have no way of knowing whether I was an hour ago. I have memories of thinking about being conscious when I last responded to the thread, so I count this as some evidence of having not been a zombie at that time. There are definitely some spans of time today when I can only guess that I was not a zombie (during parts of my commute for instance; I know that I got here, but how?).
Things like this used to bother me a lot more than they do now. I think that's one of the joys of aging.
Posted by: PaulC | May 17, 2005 4:38:51 PM
First, I think tom's right about the problems with the zombie research program.
In response to Eric, I take it that the force of Koch's argument (or, at any rate the force of the argument that I irresponsibly attributed to him) is that the qualia themselves play an essential functional role. If that were so then you couldn't have the function without the qualia.
So understood the argument is about the conceivability of zombies. Here's an analogy: You can say that there is such thing as a round square, but if you know enough about squares you'll see that round squares aren't conceptually possible. Similarly, you can say that there are zombies, but if you understand enough about the functional role of qualia then you'll see that zombies aren't conceptually possible.
Now, I'm not saying that this is right. I'm just saying that Koch doesn't obviously misunderstand the zombie hypothesis.
Posted by: zwichenzug | May 17, 2005 4:39:14 PM
100% with Julian Elson here, modulo the doubt and struggling.
Posted by: rilkefan | May 17, 2005 4:39:58 PM
The argument only works as a refutation of the zombie hypothesis. Hard to tell from the excerpt.
It seems like a lot of time has been wasted on this garbage -- but probably 99% of the population's worldview has a foundation in dualism, which, I think brings us back to politics, as my type of liberalism is tricky to explain to a dualist[that cannot be the right word!]
Posted by: theCoach | May 17, 2005 4:49:49 PM
"who claim that (1) there is no such thing as a soul and (2) a machine could never think. If you rule out the soul, human beings are machines, and no mystic quantum gibberish is going to let you escape that."
I don't see why this isn't an acceptable conclusion?
Posted by: Glenn Bridgman | May 17, 2005 4:53:36 PM
First vampires, now zombies?
I like to think that he's writing a novel about an idealistic youth who joins forces with the neighborhood crack dealer to fight off an invading hoarde of bloodsuckers and zombified Chets. An allegory about gentrification, if you will.
That, or I have to wonder if MattY is still "drug free since January".
Posted by: Rebecca | May 17, 2005 4:53:43 PM
tom's right about the problems with the zombie research program.
And that's not even considering what happens when they escape the facility and start eating people's brains.
Posted by: PaulC | May 17, 2005 4:56:46 PM
Matt, complete zombiehood is just what you say, and people like Dennett have rightly attacked the idea. However, Koch is using the idea of partial zombiehood, which people like Dennett have also used (there's a section called "Blindsight: Partial Zombiehood?" in Consciousness Explained). Basically, the zombie parts of your brain activity are the parts that you're not conscious of. But "zombie" sounds so much cooler than "unconscious".
Posted by: Blar | May 17, 2005 5:06:48 PM
On a related note, I have zero respect for people like Penrose and Searle, who claim that (1) there is no such thing as a soul and (2) a machine could never think. If you rule out the soul, human beings are machines, and no mystic quantum gibberish is going to let you escape that.
Dunno about Searle, but Penrose's specific claim is that there is no logical system that encompasses the reasoning power of the human mind. Definitional tricks about what consitutes a 'machine' aren't particularly relevant.
Posted by: Aaron | May 17, 2005 5:10:57 PM
damn, I was hoping this was a conversation about voodoo zombies. much more interesting than p-zombies, IMHO.
Posted by: flip | May 17, 2005 5:50:57 PM
What the hell are you people talking about? Wanna hear about a cool deal I just made?
Posted by: Chet | May 17, 2005 5:52:26 PM
Well, yes, you do have to imagine a well-dressed investment banker zombie to come anywhere close to objectivity.
All the zombies we ever see are unkempt and dirty, if not actually eating uncooked body parts. With only those examples before us you can't form a fair judgement.
Posted by: serial catowner | May 17, 2005 6:03:48 PM
On a related note, I have zero respect for people like Penrose and Searle, who claim that (1) there is no such thing as a soul and (2) a machine could never think. If you rule out the soul, human beings are machines, and no mystic quantum gibberish is going to let you escape that.
Actually, I believe Penrose thinks a differently constructed type of machine, more like a physical brain, could think, just not a computer as we know it.
Personally, I don't find his argument convincing and I certainly don't find Searle's convincing. (But I don't think Penrose bought Searle's argument either; on the other hand, he did buy Lucas's.)
Posted by: Matt McIrvin | May 17, 2005 8:17:46 PM
This book is pretty interesting. People can act without conscious control. If you drive to work the same way every day, you stop making conscious decisions on where to drive. You just drive. Which is why you drive the wrong way when you change jobs.
Posted by: joe o | May 17, 2005 8:48:36 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
