So I am finally done teaching summer school and am ready to settle in to my two weeks of ‘vacation’ before the Fall semester begins. Just as I am about to switch on the PS3 I am struck by the following line of argument…let me know what you think of it…
Those who know me know that I am fond of an argumentative strategy that I call ‘deprioritizing’ when it comes to a priori arguments against (or for) materialism. The idea is taken from the police. When something is deprioritized we still recognize it is a legitimate thing but also recognize that it is not a high priority. So if we are deprioritize the a priori arguments we can still acknowledge that in principle we can tell a priori what is what but for us it will be an empirical discovery. By the time a priori methods will be useful it will be too late. I do this by introducing shombies and zoombies. A shombie is a physical duplicate of me that has consciousness in the absence of any non-material properties. I have claimed that when we are conceiving of a shombie world we are NOT conceiving a a zombie world. But how do we know that it is not? I tend to think of the shombie world as the close possible world where some kind of higher-order theory is true and we have consciousness just like we do in the actual worlds.
This got me to thinking. How does the other side know that consciousness is absent at the zombie world? According to them to know that one is consciously seeing red is to be acquainted with a red quale in such a way as to have it partly constituting my belief or judgment. So to know that we have consciousness, or to know that it isn’t lacking at the actual world, requires being acquainted with it. So how do we know that it is lacking at the zombie world? Sure can conceive of a word with our physics at some future date but all we can ‘see’ is that there are beings there who look like us, talk like us, etc. It would seem that we have no way to tell from the third-person whether these ‘zombies’ really do lack consciousness and since that is the only way for us to know about zombies we are led to a contradiction. In order to conceive of zombies we must know that they lack consciousness, but it is impossible for us to know that they lack consciousness, thus zombies are inconceivable. We can sum this up in the following argument.
1. If zombies are ideally conceivable then we can know that they (the zombies) lack consciousness
2. We cannot know that they lack consciousness
3. Therefore zombies are not ideally conceivable
An opponent might respond that it is just stipulated that there is no consciousness at the zombie world but this is exactly the reason why physicalist claim that the zombie argument is question begging or that it builds into the very concept of consciousness that it is non-physical.
Richard –
Isn’t the zombie world meant to be just a logical possibility? So I’m not sure why what we can know is relevant. The point isn’t that a world full of zombies where people know they’re zombies is possible. The point is that a world full of zombies is possible, tout court. Not sure how the epistemic problem raises trouble for this being a logical possibility. Seems like you’re assuming some kind of verificationism, according to which what can’t be epistemically settled even in principle is logically impossible or meaningless, or something like that. This is a pretty controversial background assumption. Ayer famously claimed that distinctions that appear conceivable (idealism vs. materialism) are actually meaningless because there’s no way of determining which is true. But most have rejected positivism for this very reason: two possibilities can be logically distinct even if there is no way of epistemically telling between them. There is arguably no way for me to tell whether or not I’m a brain in a vat or what I think I am, but the two are logically distinct.
Richard-
Well, of course you answered your own question at the very end: zombies are not conscious by hypothesis. We can’t tell empirically whether or not they are conscious any more than we can know for sure that each other are conscious (there is no sure argument against solipsism).
I’ve never quite understood the nature of the controversies surrounding zombies. Logical conceivability vs. metaphysical possibility – my eyes glaze over. To me, the whole point of the zombie thought experiment is simply to highlight an embarrassing failure of entailment in materialism. What if I were to hypothesize a world in which the average molecular kinetic energies of everything were exactly the same as in our world, but nevertheless everything’s temperature were different? Since temperature just is average molecular kinetic energy, this amounts to imagining a world in which
all bachelors are married. The materialist, in this case, can tell a straightforward story about kinetic energy that
exhaustively explains every property of heat so that there is nothing left over to be different if the kinetic energies are the same. The zombie thought experiment exists as a challenge to the materialist to tell a similarly straightforward story about phenomenal properties. The failure to do so is the famous explanatory gap. The claim of materialism is pretty extravagant (physicists call their dreamed-of unification of the four basic forces the TOE, “Theory Of Everything”), and as
such, it only takes a single counterexample to call it into question.
-John Gregg
https://home.comcast.net/~johnrgregg/
Hi Tad, thanks for the comment!
Hi John, thanks for the comment!
hi richard — we can imagine many things that are unknowable. e.g. we can imagine the truth of fitch’s unknowable proposition “q and no-one knows that q”. that shows that one can imagine p and know that one can imagine p even without being able to know p — those are just entirely different things.
Thanks Dave! This is very helpful!
Just to follow up on the last point. It seems to me that one thing that we have learned from the Qualia Wars of the ’90s is what the concept of consciousness would have to pick out in order for dualism to be true (these are the Qualia that Dennett wants to Quine). We also learned what the concept of consciousness would have to pick out in order for a 2D reduction of it to be carried out (that we can have a 2D reduction, just like water, is my view, leave aside the other non-reductive version, like Ned’s, for now). But in both cases it is the same primary intension. So, the only thing that can be different is the assumption about what it picks out in the actual world. But there is a whole host of phenomenological and empirical questions which we haven’t settled (phenomenological questions like; can pain and painfulness come apart? or How reliable is introspection? or Do we pick out conscious states by an essential property? and Can qualitative states occur unconsciously. Empirical questions like; is the pfc required for consciousness? Will consciousness survive artificial neurons? ). And we have to settle them before we will be in a position to know what is actually picked out in our world. I am willing to grant that on ideal reflection we could settle this, but that does not mean that it is so settled now or that the way we will actually settle it depends on a priori considerations. So unless one begins with the conception of consciousness as something that is really private, ineffable, intrinsic, non-relational, etc then it will obviously follow that once you know that it could be known a priori. But if one starts with the conception of consciousness as physical it will be a priori the other way. I think something like this is what is going on when people say that the zombie argument assumes the truth of non-materialism. I don’t think you can respond that the conceivability of zombies is enough to settle the issue since we have the conceivability of shombies to contend with….anyway =, sorry to ramble on!
1. If zombies are ideally conceivable then we can know that they (the zombies) lack consciousness
2. We cannot know that they lack consciousness
—
3. Therefore zombies are not ideally conceivable
Um, from not-q, you cannot conclude not-p.
Still, I get your drift and will probably use your argument. I think the valid conclusion is that we still are not sure zombies are ideally conceivable. I have never known what “ideally conceivable” is supposed to mean. Can I ideally conceive that 2+2=5? Can I ideally conceive that two parallel lines do meet? Can I conceive that the cat in the box is alive, and does my conception carry any weight as to whether it is alive? My take on “conceive” is always just a hypothetical, nothing stronger.
>>>Um, from not-q, you cannot conclude not-p.
The argument is straightforward modus tollens.
I think Richard has done a good job expressing one of the main weaknesses the zombie arguments.
I am now also thinking that premise 1 is problematic:
>>1. If zombies are ideally conceivable then we can know that they (the zombies) lack consciousness
It could be that zombies are ideally conceivable, but folks do not have
knowledge that physical duplicates could lack consciousness.
Let’s say the
zombiephiles are right in their two characteristic claims:
A- Consciousness is subjective experience
B- Consciousness cannot be explicated or explained in terms of
functions/causes/biology/physics/neuroscience/chemistry, or any
combination of such resources or things that supervene on them.
Point A seems obvious, it’s just restating the explanandum. Point
B is a conceptual point that is far from obvious, but let’s say it is
true, for argument’s sake. Once you endorse B, the conceivability of zombies is not a far step (we can conceive of physical duplicates without consciousness existing). (I could add a qualification or two there, i.e., the move from points A and B to the ideal conceivability of zombies is actually not all that trivial, but let’s ignore that for now.)
The problem is that even if we assume we have a concept of consciousness that allows us to conceive of zombies, it doesn’t follow that physical duplicates could really lack consciousness, i.e., it doesn’t follow that zombies are truly possible. Therefore people couldn’t “know” that zombies are really possible because knowledge implies truth. So premise 1 is problematic.
To pick a silly analogy, it’s like people conceiving of the
sun as a god, and arguing that this god concept cannot be explicated in terms of chemicals, fusion reactions, and such. They would be right in their conceptual point, but it wouldn’t change the
fact that the sun is a complex thermochemical process. They are just using a concept that doesn’t latch onto the underlying ontology in any useful way. Indeed, it latches on in a counterproductive, misleading, and wrongheaded way.
This is also what zombie-lovin’ advocates of point B are doing, arguably. They have latched onto a particular conception of consciousness, an accretion to the vanilla point A, that paints them into a dualistic corner.
Note I am not arguing that consciousness is defined in functional/causal/neuronal terms (i.e., I am not advocating analytical neuralism or whatever). I am saying that, regardless of your pre-theoretic concepts about consciousness, that consciousness is in fact a brain process.
I do think eventually the concept of consciousness will change, that the concept of a ‘representation’ that can be cashed out in wide neuronal terms, will actually clean up enough of the conceptually dualistic residue that people will be less tempted to endorse B in about 50 years. At that point people’s conception of consciousness will better match up with reality, and they will see at a more intuitive level that point B is contrary to our best thinking and evidence. I am already at this point, but many people I talk to still have a powerful dualistic intuition that they seem to be unable to shake (perhaps similar to vitalist intuitions from two centuries ago).
In short, premise 1 suggests that conceivability implies possibility. That is false.
I have no idea if my argument to that effect in the previous comment is novel or day-old hash.
Thanks Eric, you are right that the arg is just modus tollens, which is valid…Joshua you don’t like modus tollens? I can state it as a modus ponens if tat helps…
Thanks again Eric.
Richard I think we largely agree, but are using terms somewhat differently. Let me focus on what I take to be the crux.
I said:
The problem is that even if we assume we have a concept of
consciousness that allows us to conceive of zombies, it doesn’t follow
that physical duplicates could really lack consciousness, i.e., it
doesn’t follow that zombies are truly possible.
Richard:
If you allow that someone can conceive of zombies then you
allow that there is some scenario in which there are physical
duplicates that lack consciousness. But if that scenario had been the
actual world then it would have been false that consciousness was
physical. That is all that it means to say that it is possible that
there could be physical duplicates that lack consciousness!
I disagree with this connection between conceivability and logical
possibility. If you are working with a defective set of concepts then
you can
conceive of something that is not in fact logically possible.
E.g., someone could conceive that Mary-Anne Evans was married to John
Cross, but George Eliot was not. Does it follow that it is possible
that MAE was married to JC, but GE was not? No. They were the same
person.
I’m saying that, similarly, those dualists working with an alloyed,
defective concept of consciousness can indeed conceive of zombies, but
because consciousness is just a brain process, zombies are not
actually possible any more than George Eliot was different from Mary
Anne Evans.
To put it a different way, conceivability is
relative to the psychological facts about one’s conceptual framework,
which might be defective;
possibility is not a psychological notion, but a logical notion and
there is an objective right answer that is independent of contingent
psychological considerations like what concepts you happen to have.
That’s how I’m using the terms, anyway.
Richard said:
That is why, as I say, it seems what is really going on is
that we have two conceptions of consciousness and we don’t know which
one is the right one…and relative to each one different things will
seem to be conceivable… and why I think that you are not really
denying the link between conceivability and possibility..
Hopefully what I said above clarifies what I was getting at, and why I
am indeed denying such an implication, and why I think your premise 1
is false. Perhaps you are using ‘conceivability’ in a different sense than me.
My move is just another way to deny the force of the zombie arguments,
though, as such arguments rely so heavily on the conceivability–>possibility
connection.
I’m reading my own post to try to see what I was thinking … somehow got my p’s where my q’s should have been so a big nevermind on that.
I agree that we cannot *know* if they lack consciousness, we can assert it, but assertion is not a proof. Something along those lines.
Hey Eric, we may just have a terminological disagreement.
This explains our difference. Ultimately it is clear the zombie-heads are using a prima facie conception, so our arguments collapse into the same thing at some level.
I have my reasons to avoid your/Chalmers way of putting things. One, I don’t want to collapse logical and psychological notions that way. Why even talk of conceivability if it reduces to logical possiblility? Ultimately, premise one then becomes zombies are logically possible, so zombies are logically possible. Why not just argue about whether zombies are logically possible? Cut out all this talk about your ability to conceive.
Forgive me for being blunt, but it is such a useless philosopher move to do that. “I can conceive that life floats free of physicochemical processes.” “Sure, but are you an ideal conceiver?” “Well, my idea of life is clear and distinct, so I think so.” “But what if you are wrong?” Cut the BS and just talk about whether life is a complex physicochemical process or not. Same with consciousness.
On a related point, nobody knows if they are an ideal conceiver when it comes to substantive partly empirical questions like this, so what’s the practical purpose of all this? This ideal agent effectively is omniscient, and I find reasoning about omniscient beings, or assuming I am one and engaging in first-order arguments as if I am, to be not very helpful. Once you assume the extensions of your terms are transparent (which is one necessary feature of being an ideal conceiver), at least with these arguments about the structure of the natural world, you have gone into the realm of zero psychological plausibility.
I prefer to use more flexible common language with this, and when I do not only does that let me talk to my non-philosopher friends without getting them justifiably pissed off, but it also puts the onus on the zombie-heads to show that they are not using a defective conceptual scheme. If you buy into their terminology, you have already made too many concessions and will get lost in a word jungle.
Anyway, that’s why I don’t talk that way. However, you obviously should use terms however you want, and all
that. You philosophers have your shop talk and perhaps you guys get something out
of talking this way, maybe you have gotten some substantive results of which I am ignorant. 😛
yeah I thought that explained it…I do have some sympathy with your tirade (that was mostly the point of my paper Deprioritizing the A Priori Arguments Against Physicalism) but it is pretty clear that there is a difference between being ideally conceivable and being logically possible even if there is a relationship between them that doesn’t mean they are the same thing! But anyway the reason to talk this way is because we do not want to construct straw targets…the zombie argument appeals to ideal primary conceivability and claims that that kind of conceivability entails logical possibility and so one needs to deal with the argument on those terms. The ‘more flexible common language’ is imprecise but, anyway, the whole point of this post was to point out, in a non straw target way that they may be using a defective concept of consciousness (the very one which seems to license zombies in the first place) so I don’t think being clear about what the argument is requires the physicalist to make any concessions.
Richard, yes I thought that was why you went that route, and I think that is an interesting way to go to refute the zombie arguments on their own terms.
I’d rather just avoid that whole apparatus and attack things in more conversational, commonly understandable term. I haven’t lost anything in doing so. I don’t see anthing particularly imprecise in what I said: indeed I think the notion of an ideal conceiver is incredibly unclear: what are necessary and sufficient conditions for being an ideal conceiver? I avoid all that crap and just talk about ways conceiving of something can go wrong, and point out that a very good case can be made that this is precisely what is happening for the zombieheads, despite their talk of ‘ideal conceiving.’
But again, I got what you were doing, and can appreciate your (and Gualtiero, and Frankish) approach by pulling a reductio.
What you have done is useful because (Gualtiero especially) has shown that Chalmers has to say that it is literally inconceivable that consciousness is a brain process. Which I find preposterous, because I believe I can conceive of a conscious brain process. To speak like Locke, I think God could make it so that brains were sufficient for conscious experiences, without needing to add an extra ingredient.
While I don’t necessarily agree that ideal conceivability (whatever that is) entails logical possibility, you are right to point out that even if it did, that wouldn’t be right to say they are equivalent, so I was definitely being a bit unfair in my tirade. I considered editing that to be more clear after I initially posted it, but left it as it was even though it was an overstatement.
I left it just to keep in my point that in practice there seem to be no benefits by talking about ideal conceivers instead of just talking, first-order, about the topic you are interested in. I see this move to ‘conceivability’ as yet another backwards trend serving to keep philosophy in disrepute, blocking philosophers from talking about substantive issues. Much like the old analytical view that focusing on meanings of words (instead of first-order discussions of the subject matter itself) could somehow solve all the problems of the day. This move to ‘conceivabilily’, and the modal arguments that it is connected with, seem a similarly regressive approach.
So much great intellectual energy spent on trying to read the structure of the world from the structure of your concepts. It really pisses me off, because philosophers tend to be so very smart, and could make such useful contributions if they directed that laser beam in a better direction.
Obviously my feelings about this go beyond the zombie arguments specifically. 🙂
Incidentally, it is not a straw man if you reframe their argument in terms more acceptable to more people, including them.
Richard: there are two issues. One: since you used the term ‘ideal conceiver’ , and I don’t understand what an ideal conceiver is, I will just take your word for it about what they can and can’t do, and avoid talking about them. And this protects your premise 1 against my objections, so your deflection of my criticism of your argument seems right. So you are right that my concerns about your premise one are ill-conceived [sic].
Two: it is clear that there is more than one way to skin a zombie. We can avoid the ideal conceiver apparatus altogether and make what amounts to the same argument. This doesn’t make the alternate argument imprecise or unclear. When I say they are using a defective conceptual scheme, and give examples, that is perfectly clear. Within their framework, if they want to reframe my objection as claiming they are using a merely prima facie conception of consciousness, good for them.
In your language, I am directly arguing, in more ordinary language, that zombies are not ideally conceivable (just as apparently it is not possible to ideally conceive that Mark Twain is different from Samuel Clemens). So I am arguing for your conclusion (3) directly, but without entering this ideal-conceiver/modal apparatus. That said, I am happy you, Frankish, Guatiero went into the
apparatus and showed the problems that way.
That’s why you should be philosophers and I should not.
The final issue is how thin this comment is getting. So if there are any more, I’d recommend “popping” out to a higher level in this comment push.
It is nearly impossible, at this point, to not laugh at this comment qua vehicle.
Eric, (this is a reply to the skinny comments below)
I have nothing to say…I just want a comment as funny as Eric’s
Richard: not sure what you are addressing I already addressed this in my previous comment.
I never said all idealizations are bad. I just don’t like this one. Ideal gases are very well defined and helpful.
Since you can use the term how you see fit, I already conceded that my attack on your premise 1 was too fast (that was point 1 above).
My point 2 above was that I prefer to defuse the zombie arguments differently, indirectly. Yours isn’t the only way, and while it is more direct I find it less useful and clear in practice.
People wedded to the whole ‘ideal conceivability implying logical possibility’ apparatus can easily translate my argument into their framework (answer: I am arguing you do not (ideally) conceive of zombies). They have a defective conception of consciousness, and this allows them to think they can conceive of zombies. In your jargon, they do not (ideally) conceive of zombies. Not sure what is missing or unclear here. It seems you are perseverating on the ideal/prima facie distinction as somehow the gold standard by which to judge other formulations. That is an argument that I’m not very interested in having.
So when you say “you need to allow that even with the best concepts and best theories we could still conceive of zombies” that is false. I have said repeatedly that the correct conception doesn’t allow for zombies, but only a defective conception does. That was my original point!
“My point 2 above was that I prefer to defuse the zombie arguments differently, indirectly. Yours isn’t the only way, and while it is more direct I find it less useful and clear in practice.”
Richard you are still perseverating, but I think I see why now.
The argument I wish to undermine is the standard zombie argument:
1 If X is ideally conceivable, then X is logically possible.
2 X is ideally conceivable.
Therefore, X is logically possible.
My claim is that premise two is false, and this renders the argument unsound. You are still caught up on premise one, which I am not talking about any more, which I have granted to you in my previous two posts.
My argument has a different focus. If X is that zombies exist, then it is analogous to having X=Samuel Clemens is not Mark Twain. And that is simply a howler. This avoids premise one and indirectly establishes that premise two is false.
Sure, I do not express this in terms of the above argument with ideal conceivers and such, but anyone with a dash of sense and charity should see the connection. My route is to explain how people can form the rather misguided concept of (i.e., how the come to “conceive of”) zombies in the first place, and this indirectly undermines premise 2.
As I said, there is more than one way to kill a zombie. Please, just stop this madness you damned hair-splitting philosopher!
“My claim is that premise two is false, and this renders the argument unsound. You are still caught up on premise one, which I am not talking about any more, which I have granted to you in my previous two posts.”
Glad you see it now. As I said, I think the the translation from my more conversational style into zombie-head speak is transparent, but sometimes I have to draw things out explicitly like that. Good to consider for when I write these things up for a more general audience.
Eric, I am not sure what you are talking about. I saw how to translate your inaccurate statement of the argument and your response into the right way the whole time. What I was trying to make clear to you is why it matters to get it right.
I will be sure to add a footnote for those who understand my argument but would demand that I filter it through their hair-splitting apparatus.
Eric, one last time just in case you want to engage with the actual issues;
2. The way the argument is formulated by those who support it as well as those who don’t recognize the above and use it in the formulation of teh argument. So if you don’t recognize it you are not really engaging with them.
3. Your imprecise way of putting it obscures the interesting fact that you yourself seem to rely on some kind of link between conceivability and possibility in your argument against the zombie argument (given the right concepts zombies are inconceivable).
On no 3-As I explained above, in their language my argument implies they don’t ideally conceive of zombies. This doesn’t commit me to the claim that conceivability (ideal or otherwise) implies logical possibility. It merely stops the flow of their argument.
No’s 1 and 2 I’ve addressed already, not sure how I can makemore clear than I did above when I spelled out each step of the enthymeme for you. I will agree with one thing: you would prefer I use different words to make my point. Let it go.