Isn't a zombie equivalent to, say, a spreadsheet that doesn't really perform
the proper calculations, but produces all the right answers for all the data
and functions you happen to put in?
It seems like such an elaborate con-job is far more inefficient and
intensive (and pointlessly so) once you put it in a rich enough environment.
As someone probably once said, the quickest way to simulate the universe
accurately is to be the universe.
For me, consciousness is all about the simplification and unification of
experience/assessment/action into higher and higher abstractions - to deal
with a complicated world we have to make stories about it, and to deal with
other people doing the same thing we have to make extremely complicated and
self-referential stories. Consciousness is just the top layer, and sometimes
done after-the-fact, simply because the machinery doesn't know not to.
--------------------------
- Did you ever hear of "The Seattle Seven"?
- Mmm.
- That was me... and six other guys.
2008/11/6 Günther Greindl <guenther.greindl.domain.name.hidden>
>
> Hello Bruno,
>
> > More exactly: I can conceive fake policemen in paper are not conscious,
> > and that is all I need to accept I can be fail by some zombie.
> > Thus I can conceive zombies.
>
> Ok, but conceivability does not entail possibilty. I think philosophical
> zombies are impossible (=not able to exist in the real world), not
> inconceivable.
>
> > Developing this argument makes zombies logically conceivable, even, if
> > I would refute the claim that a zombie acting exactly like I would act
> > in any situation can exist. Accidental zombie can exist. It could
> > depend what we put exactly in the term zombie.
>
> Ok, I agree with that.
>
> >> and here you clarify:
> >>
> >>> If this were true, then the movie graph (step 8 without occam) would
> >>> not been needed. Arithmetical truth is provably full of philosophical
> >>> zombies if comp is true and step 8 false.
>
> Hmm - in step 8 you eliminate the physical universe, which is ok *grin*
> - but why would arithmetical truth be full of zombies with comp true and
> step 8 false -> physicalism true? do you mean because we could than
> program AIs which would behave "correctly" but would not be conscious?
>
> > So it is just a theorem in computer science: computations are encodable
> > (and thus encoded) in the (additive+multiplicative) relations existing
> > between numbers.
>
> Ok, I'm with you.
>
> > So, someone who does not believe in philosophical zombies, does not
> > need the step 8 (the Movie Graph Argument MGA), because arithmetical
> > truth does contains the computation describing, well, for example this
> > very discussion we have here and now.
>
> Ok, so I guess that would be my position *grin* - I think that all
> states have a form of mentality - maybe not full consciousness, but
> mentality.
>
> > For me the MGA is needed because I don't want to rely on the non
> > existence of zombie.
>
> Ok.
>
> What I still don't get is why you associate mental states only with
> _true_ statements. Why not with false ones? Would that not be more in
> line with a plenitude-like theory?
>
> False states could encode very weird psychic experiences (dreams for
> instance or whatever...)
>
> >> I follow you that 1st person is recoverable by a 3rd person number
> >> theoretic description - or better, OMs are - but how would a zombie
> >> come
> >> about? Can you give an example?
> >
> >
> > Just consider the computation which correspond to your actual real
> > life. That computation is encoded (indeed an infinity of times) in the
> > Universal Deploiement, which is itself encoded (indeed an infinity of
> > times) in the set of all arithmetical truth. All right?
>
> Agreed in principle (with my question of why only true sentences thrown in)
>
> >such a > computation would define an arithmetical version of you, and
> would
> > constitute a phisophical (indeed arithmetical) zombies.
>
> Ok, I think it would not be a zombie - already once we accept _comp_ -
> maudlin notwithstanding; I think Maudlin saw his argument rather as
> causing a problem for _comp_
>
> > If you define the zombies as having a "material" body, then it is
>
> I would say a zombie is a creature which behaves exactly like X but does
> not have mental states, but X has mental states.
>
> Best Wishes,
> Günther
>
> >
>
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Received on Thu Nov 06 2008 - 13:20:33 PST