So, returning to our thought experiment, spectrum inversion is actually impossible on Russellian Monism because the intrinsic categorical facts are also physical facts.
Not in the sense of the kind of facts that physics deals with.
Russelian monism struggles with Epiphenomenality: if the measurable, structural properties are sufficient to predict what happens, the the phenomenal properties are along for the ride.
Dual-aspect neutral monism is Russelian monism done right. This holds that the physical sciences are one possible map of territory which is not itself, intrinsically, physical (or, for that matter, mental). Consciousness is another map, or aspect.
This approach has the advantage of dualism, in that there is no longer a need to explain the mental in terms of the physical, to reduce it to the physical, because the physical is no longer regarded as fundamental (nor is the mental, hence the "neutral"). Although an ontological identity between the physical and mental is accepted, the epistemic irreducibility of the mental to the physical is also accepted. Physicalism, in the sense that the physical sciences have a unique and priveleged explanatory role, is therefore rejected. To take one example, since the a conscious mental state and physical brain state are ultimately the same thing, the expected correlations hold between them. For instance, mental states cannot vary without some change in the physical state (supervenience follows directly from identity, without any special apparatus); furthermore, since mental states are ultimately identical to physical brain states, they share the causal powers of brain states (again without the need to posit special explanatory apparatus such as "psychophysical laws"), and in that way epiphenomenalism is avoided.
The more familiar kinds of dualism are substance and property dualism. Both take a physical ontology "as is" and add something extra, and both have problems with explaining how the additional substances or properties interact with physical substances and properties, and both of course have problems with ontological parsimony (Occam's Razor).
In contrast to a substance or property, an aspect is a relational kind of thing. In Dual Aspect theory, a conscious state is interpreted as being based on the kind of relationship and entity has with itself, and the kind of interaction it has with itself. The physical is reinterpreted as a kind of interaction with and relation to the external. It is not clear whether this theory adds anything fundamentally new, ontologically, since most people will accept the existence of some kind of inner/outer distinction, although the distinction may be made to do more work in Dual Aspect theory. Reinterpreting the physical is a genuine third alternative to accepting (only) the physical, denying the physical, and suplementing the physical.
Not in the sense of the kind of facts that physics deals with.
Agreed. I mention this point in the article. Physics as it is currently construed doesn't deal with the intrinsic categorical facts entailed by monism.
Thanks for posting the interesting thoughts around Dual Aspect Theory! I'm sympathetic to the viewpoint and it seems similar to what I'm gesturing at in the post. I'll definitely be sure to research it further offline.
Russelian monism struggles with Epiphenomenality: if the measurable, structural properties are sufficient to predict what happens, the the phenomenal properties are along for the ride.
I mean, it's monism - it supposed to only has one type of stuff, obviously structural properties only work, because of underlying phenomenal/physical substrate.
furthermore, since mental states are ultimately identical to physical brain states, they share the causal powers of brain states (again without the need to posit special explanatory apparatus such as “psychophysical laws”), and in that way epiphenomenalism is avoided.
I don't see how having two special maps has anything to do with monistic ontology, that enables casual closure. What's the problem with just having neutral-monistic ontology, like you say Dual-aspect neutral monism has, and use normal physical epistemology?
the epistemic irreducibility of the mental to the physical is also accepted.
Why? If ontologically there is only one type of stuff, then you can reduce mental description to physical, because they describe one reality. Same way you reduce old physical theory to a new one.
I don't think there is a need to qualify it as a potential solution - Russellian Monism just solves the Hard Problem.
Zombies would also not be able to tell they’re not zombies – which leads to the disconcerting question – how do you know you’re not a zombie?
I know that I'm not a zombie since I have consciousness, which in my case at this moment includes consciousness of knowing that I have consciousness. Anything that can be conscious of knowing that they are conscious is not a zombie by definition.
A zombie would not know that it is conscious. It would also not know that it is not conscious. It would not even know that it is uncertain about being conscious or not. Knowing is a property of a mind, and by definition of "zombie" there is no mind there to know with.
Naturally a p-zombie behaves as if it can know things to all levels of external inspection, though whether p-zombies can exist is an unsettled question.
I know that I'm not a zombie since I have consciousness
Yes, but this is exactly what a zombie would say. Sure, in your case you presumably have direct access to your conscious experience that a zombie doesn't have, but the rhetorical point I'm making in the post is that a zombie would believe it has phenomenal consciousness with the same conviction you have and when asked to justify it's conviction it would point to the same things you do.
You didn't (rhetorically) ask what a zombie would say. You asked how do I know. That fact that something else might say the same thing as I did is not at all disconcerting to me, and I'm not sure why it's disconcerting to you.
You don't need to go anything like as far as p-zombies to get something that says the same thing. A program consisting of print("I know that I'm not a zombie since I have consciousness") etc does the same thing.
The rhetorical point you're making is simply false. A p-zombie would not believe anything, since it has no mind with which to believe. It would merely act in the same manner as something that has a mind.
Look, I appreciate the pushback, but I think you’re pressing a point which is somewhat tangential and not load-bearing for my position.
I agree that zombies have no mental states so, by definition, they can’t “believe” anything.
The point is, when you say “I know I’m conscious” you think you’re appealing to your direct phenomenal experience. Fine. But the zombie produces the exact same utterance, not by appealing to its phenomenal experience but through a purely physical/functional process which is a duplicate process to the one running in your brain. In this case, the thing which is doing the causal work to produce the utterances must be the physical/functional profile of their brain, not the phenomena itself.
So if the zombie argument is correct, you think you’re appealing to the phenomenal aspect of consciousness to determine the truth of your consciousness but you’re actually using the physical/functional profile of your brain. Hence my rhetorical point at the start of the article; if the zombie argument is correct then how do you know you’re not a zombie? The solution is that the zombie argument isn’t correct.
In the article, I also propose Russelian monism which takes the phenomenal aspect of consciousness seriously. In this way, you’d know the truth of your consciousness by introspecting because you’d have direct access to it. So again, the point you’re pressing is actually correct - you would indeed know that you’re not a zombie because you have access to your phenomenal consciousness.
A program consisting of print(“I know that I’m not a zombie since I have consciousness”) etc does the same thing.
No it doesn’t. The functional/physical profile of a print statement isn’t similar to the human brain. I’m also not sure why this point is relevant.
Could you clarify what it means for "the zombie argument" to be correct/incorrect? The version I have in mind (and agree with) is, roughly, 'p-zombies are conceivable; therefore, we can't know a priori that facts about the physical world entail, or are identical to, facts about conscious experience'. I would then add that we have insufficient evidence to be empirically certain of that entailment or identity [edit: but it would be very weird if the entailment didn't hold, and I have no particular reason to believe that it doesn't.] When you say the zombie argument isn't correct, are you disagreeing with me on conceivability, or the 'therefore', or the empirical part -- or do you have a different argument in mind?
On standard physicalism zombies would be conceivable because physics only captures the functional/relational properties between things, but this misses the intrinsic properties underlying these relations which are phenomenal.
On Russelian Monism, zombies are not conceivable because if you duplicate the physics you’re also duplicating the intrinsic, categorical properties and these are phenomenal (or necessarily give rise to phenomena.)
I could also imagine other flavours of Monism (which might be better labelled as property dualism?) for which the intrinsic categorical properties are contingent rather than necessary. On this view, zombies would also be conceivable.
I would tentatively lean towards regular Russellian Monism (I.e. zombies are inconceivable which is what I crudely meant by saying the zombie argument isn’t correct.)
On standard physicalism zombies would be conceivable
On standard (non eliminative) physicalism, zombies cannot be conceived without contradiction , because physicalism holds that consciousness is entirely physical, and a physical duplicate is a duplicate simpliciter. So the inconceivability of zombies is not a USP of RM.
The bite of the zombie argument is that zombies are conceivable given physics ... physics does not predict phenomenal properties, so absence of phenomenal properties does not lead to contradiction.
I could also imagine other flavours of Monism (which might be better labelled as property dualism?) for which the intrinsic categorical properties are contingent rather than necessary
Phenomenal "properties" are more necessary under DAT than RM, because they are not even separate properties, but arise from the subjective perspective on the underlying reality.
On standard (non eliminative) physicalism, zombies cannot be conceived without contradiction , because physicalism holds that consciousness is entirely physical, and a physical duplicate is a duplicate simpliciter.
This isn’t correct. The standard non-eliminative (type B) physicalist stance is to grant that zombies are conceivable a priori but deny the move to metaphysical possibility a posteriori. They’d say that physical brain states are identical to phenomena but we only find this a posteriori (analogous to water = H20 or heat = molecular motion.) You might find this view unsatisfying (as I do) but there are plenty of philosophers who take the line (Loar, Papineau, Tye etc..) and it’s not contradictory.
The physicalist move to deny zombie conceivability is eliminativist (type A) and is taken by e.g. Dennett, Dretske, Lewis etc..
I agree with you overall (and voted accordingly) but I think this part is a red herring:
You don't need to go anything like as far as p-zombies to get something that says the same thing. A program consisting of print("I know that I'm not a zombie since I have consciousness") etc does the same thing.
It only "says the same thing" in one narrow case; to say all of the same things in the appropriate contexts, the program would need to be tremendously complex.
I mention this because I think you're clearly correct overall (while of course the words "believe" and "mind" could be defined in ways that do not require consciousness, those are not the relevant senses here), and it would be a pity if the conversation were derailed by that one (IMO) irrelevant example.
As Eliezer points out in his article here, a zombie duplicate of yourself would profess that it is conscious, when asked whether it had any conscious experience it would say “yes!” and when given tests designed to demonstrate its conscious experience it would pass
EY also thinks we are zombies wrt. free will -- we say we have it for reasons other than having it.
This seems false? Eliezer believes we have free will? See Thou Art Physics.
Or perhaps I should say, “If the future were not determined by reality, it could not be determined by you,” or “If the future were not determined by something, it could not be determined by you.” You don’t need neuroscience or physics to push naive definitions of free will into incoherence. If the mind were not embodied in the brain, it would be embodied in something else; there would be some real thing that was a mind. If the future were not determined by physics, it would be determined by something, some law, some order, some grand reality that included you within it.
He also argues against FW, in the sense of libertarian free will. Above , he argues for compatibilist free will. As usual, its not much of a consolation prize. To be able to determine the future in a way that is itself determined falls short of being able to steer to a future of your choosing.
ETA:
He also seems to think that merely being part of a wider system means you are determined. Nope.
Here is what he says about "compatibilism" in the above linked article
“Compatibilism” is the philosophical position that “free will” can be intuitively and satisfyingly defined in such a way as to be compatible with deterministic physics. “Incompatibilism” is the position that free will and determinism are incompatible.
My position might perhaps be called “Requiredism.” When agency, choice, control, and moral responsibility are cashed out in a sensible way, they require determinism—at least some patches of determinism within the universe. If you choose, and plan, and act, and bring some future into being, in accordance with your desire, then all this requires a lawful sort of reality; you cannot do it amid utter chaos. There must be order over at least those parts of reality that are being controlled by you. You are within physics, and so you/physics have determined the future. If it were not determined by physics, it could not be determined by you.
here he argues directly against "To be able to determine the future in a way that is itself determined falls short of being able to steer to a future of your choosing.", so I suggest you read the article before saying you know what Eliezer thinks!
here he argues directly against “To be able to determine the future in a way that is itself determined falls short of being able to steer to a future of your choosing.”
Not really, because he is only saying , in typical compatiblist fashion, that you can bring about future in accordance with your desires ...which are determined. There is still no unpredictable turning point when you make a choice ... and therefore no steering to one of a number of physically possible futures...just a bunch of clockwork that's all inevitable.
Maybe you are referring to this passage.
My position might perhaps be called “Requiredism.” When agency, choice, control, and moral responsibility are cashed out in a sensible way, they require determinism—at least some patches of determinism within the universe. If you choose, and plan, and act, and bring some future into being, in accordance with your desire, then all this requires a lawful sort of reality; you cannot do it amid utter chaos.
But choice..choice between options, any of which could possibly occur..is incompatible with determinism, because determinism means there is only ever one possible (and therefore necessary) outcome ... even if determinism is useful in other ways. You can still have a deterministic decision making process...but it is only some clockwork gets you to an outcome that was predetermined before you were born.
A libertarian choice is an actual fork in the road, and a Laplace's Demon wouldn't be able to see past it.
So, he thinks that compatibilist FW is as good as libertarian FW, because he thinks they both involve the same notion of choice...but they aren't.
Also, "utter chaos" isn't the only alternative to strict determinism. That would be false dichotomy. Lawful probabilistic causation is a thing.
You may disagree with Eliezer, but that does not change what he thinks. Perhaps you think “we are zombies wrt. free will -- we say we have it for reasons other than having it.”, but that is a very different claim than Eliezer thinks this or that Eliezer should think this.
I think he actually had different attitudes about different kinds of FW, although he isn't fully explicit about it
As a staunch physicalist I’ve spent a long time wondering how anyone could possibly find the zombie argument compelling. The intuition just doesn’t land for me. As Eliezer points out in his article here, a zombie duplicate of yourself would profess that it is conscious, when asked whether it had any conscious experience it would say “yes!” and when given tests designed to demonstrate its conscious experience it would pass. Zombies would also not be able to tell they’re not zombies – which leads to the disconcerting question – how do you know you’re not a zombie?
How could any rational person accept something so absurd?
To find out, I took to reading Chalmers’ 1996 book The Conscious Mind in an effort to understand exactly what Chalmers believes, and in engaging deeply with his arguments I think there is a much stronger intuition that can help us see what’s really driving the Hard Problem of consciousness and point towards a prospective solution.
Chalmers wants to establish that physical facts do not necessarily fix phenomenal facts. To grasp his intuition, instead of imagining a duplicate world where consciousness is absent (i.e. a zombie world) imagine a duplicate world where consciousness is different (i.e. a spectrum inverted world.)
Imagine an experiment where Bob is subject to two stimuli, let's say a blue light on the left and a red light on the right. Now, imagine a duplicate world inhabited by twin-Bob. Twin-Bob is an atom-by-atom duplicate of Bob with identical physical properties. His world contains exactly the same physics as Bob’s where blue wavelength light is short and red wavelength light is long, and they interact with the same cones in twin-Bob’s retina and activate the same regions of his visual cortex in the exact same way. There is just one crucial difference. Where Bob experiences a blue light on the left, twin-Bob experiences a red light on the left. All the physical facts are fixed but the phenomena are inverted. Unlike zombie-Bob, twin-Bob is not confused about his consciousness – he genuinely experiences something, it’s just different to Bob’s experience. This avoids the absurdity of zombies pondering their own non-existent qualia but still leaves a challenge for physicalism.
Is such a scenario conceivable? Or does a complete description of physics necessarily imply a resulting phenomenal experience?
The answer, I think, reveals something important about what physics actually describes and what is left out.
Spectrum inversion seems conceivable because physics only describes the structural and functional relationships between things. It doesn’t describe the intrinsic categorical properties which realise that structure. When we imagine spectrum inversion, we’re essentially holding the structure constant whilst varying the realiser of the structure.
Russellian Monism offers a potential solution. On this view, there are intrinsic, categorical properties underlying physical structures and these properties are phenomenal (or necessarily give rise to phenomena.) So, returning to our thought experiment, spectrum inversion is actually impossible on Russellian Monism because the intrinsic categorical facts are also physical facts. If we truly hold all physical facts constant (including the intrinsic ones) then spectrum inversion is no longer possible.
Physical facts do fix phenomenal facts. It’s just that physics as currently construed doesn’t describe the intrinsic, categorical facts needed to fix phenomena.
The Hard Problem of consciousness is hard. But this spectrum inversion thought experiment, helps point towards a solution rather than a deeper mystery. It shows us exactly where our current physical picture is incomplete and what is needed to make it complete.