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Other philosophy communities have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. [ x ]

"I thunk it so I dunk it." - Descartes

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What do you think of panpsychism/the hard problem of consciousness? (hexbear.net)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by itsPina@hexbear.net to c/philosophy@hexbear.net

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Personally I think it's silly as hell. Qualia is obviously a biological component of experience... Not some weird thing that science will never be able to put in to words.

I've been listening to a lot of psychology podcasts lately and for some reason people seem obsessed with the idea despite you needing to make the same logical leaps to believe it as any sort of mysticism... Maybe I am just tripping idk

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[–] itsPina@hexbear.net 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Talking strictly in terms of what p zombies can and cannot do feels a bit like asking whether unicorns would be able to fart rainbows if they existed. Do you want them to?

To me, entertaining the thought of a P Zombie is like asking me whether a unicorn can fart: sure why not but does that actually provide any utility to the conversation?

My belief is that consciousness is a result of your physical state, so asking me to make something with my physical state that isn't conscious is like asking me to imagine a computer that doesn't have a processor. That can't be. A computer is defined by its relationship to the processor!

How do we dissect a P Zombie that is fake conscious? How do we even suspect it's a P Zombie? Is the P Zombie dead after I take it's brain out?

[+] BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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[–] itsPina@hexbear.net 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

That's basically the question of a thought experiment. If it were possible for a being to exist that exhibits human behavior but isn't conscious, how would we be able to tell? What would need to be different? It's pointing to gaps in our current understanding.

They aren't gaps to a physicalist though. We would end up dissecting the P Zombies brain and concluding it's literally exactly the same as ours, and he was probably actually conscious.

We could even envision a technology that is able to capture, in data, the entirety of your brain state. We could then take a copy of your brain, and the p Zombies brain, and see if any differences exist. Once we determine that A = A (as the thought experiment claims at least) we would conclude the P Zombie is conscious.

This has actually happened before. People went diving for vital essences and came up with a better understanding of biology instead.

Instead of a computer with no processor we can just boil it down to what I actually think we are: biological agents with a proclivity for homeostasis. You remove the "agency" and you cannot achieve homeostasis. You can't achieve homeostasis you will not be a biological creature very long. The biological creatures that lack agency lose to my lawn mower every spring.

Consciousness simply is agency, which p Zombies lack in the thought experiment, but cannot lack in reality without being BTFO by the weather.