They believe that Eliezer only argued against a weak—Epiphenomenalist—version of Zombie Argument. But that there is also a stronger Substance Dualist version of it, that is not refuted by Eliezer’s reasoning.
As we can.see from Chalmers comment...
"Someone e-mailed me a pointer to these discussions. I’m in the middle of four weeks on the road at conferences, so just a quick comment. It seems to me that although you present your arguments as arguments against the thesis (Z) that zombies are logically possible, they’re really arguments against the thesis (E) tusal role. Of course thesis E, epiphenomenalism, is a much easier target. This would be a legitimate strategy if thesis Z entails thesis E, as you appear to assume, but this is incorrect. I endorse Z, but I don’t endorse E: see my discussion in “Consciousness and its Place in Nature”, especially the discussion of interactionism (type-D dualism) and Russellian monism (type-F monism). I think that the correct conclusion of zombie-style arguments is the disjunction of the type-D, type-E, and type-F views, and I certainly don’t favor the type-E view (epiphenomenalism) over the others. Unlike you, I don’t think there are any watertight arguments against it, but if you’re right that there are, then that just means that the conclusion of the argument should be narrowed to the other two views. Of course there’s a lot more to be said about these issues, and the project of finding good arguments against Z is a worthwhile one, but I think that such an argument requires more than you’ve given us here. "
...he actually endorses three positions, two of which EY does not argue against. (Nor do you).
Also Chalmers does not endorse substance dualism as such. You are perhaps interpreting his interactive dualism as substance dualism, but interactive dualism doesn't have to be substance dualism...he prefers property dualism... and substance dualism can be eipiphenomenal.
According to Zombie Argument:
The existence of a Zombie World—a universe completely physically identical to ours, but where humans do not have consciousness—is logically possible.
Therefore, consciousness is not physical.
But how can one possibly subscribe to this argument, while being a substance dualist and, therefore, accepting that consciousness has actually causal effect on the universe? Isn’t it an obvious contradiction?
The point of arguing for zombies is to argue for non physicalism. Zombies are not the only way to argue for nonphysicalism. Assuming non physicalism to argue against zombies is therefore a pointless way of arguing for physicalism.
This just shouldn’t be allowed. You can’t treat physics as an arbitrary category border around some laws and not the others
You seem to be arguing that interactive dualism must be disguised physicalism. But that can be disproved by putting forward a non arbitrary criterion of the physical and non physical, as we shall see.
It’s not what the term means
It's reasonable to define physicalism in terms of physics.
"Physics" doesnt mean "the only way the world could possible be". Physics focuses on objective (because results need to be confirmed by multiple scientists) and quantifiable (because physics uses maths as its language). If it happen to be the case that there is something in the universe that is subjective or unquantifiable,then physics can't get a grip on it.
So physics is not guaranteed to be able to explain everything. And subjective , unquantifiable, etc, are , the non arbitrary criterion.
And Chalmers has a version of this argument, in The Conscious Mind...he characterises the physical as the structural/functional. So he has refuted you in advance. That's one of the reasons it's useful to read the source material.
because falsehood implies everything.
It's actually contradiction, not falsehood.
Recent discussion:
You are perhaps interpreting his interactive dualism as substance dualism
You seem to be nitpicking definitions. Let's try to grasp the substance. Eliezer was initially distinguishing between two types of dualism:
His Zombie post were about the first one. This post is about the second one.
If you want to talk about some sub-type of the second that manages to evade the argument in this post - be my guest.
The point of arguing for zombies is to argue for non physicalism. Zombies are not the only way to argue for nonphysicalism. Assuming non physicalism to argue against zombies is therefore a pointless way of arguing for physicalism.
I'm not sure what this has to do with the citation.
You seem to be arguing that interactive dualism must be disguised physicalism.
It's not yet an argument, just a vibe according to which we can arrive to one. The actual argument is presented further below.
But that can be disproved by putting forward a non arbitrary criterion of the physical and non physical, as we shall see.
A non-arbitrary criterion would indeed be helpful for rescuing Zombie argument from this particular critique. But merely saying the word "subjective" doesn't help much. You need to actually prove that such subjective things exist in a sense where they are not also objective and have a method to discern whether a particular thing is subjective or objective in this sense. Otherwise, one can just say that electrons are "subjective" and we are back to square one.
"Physics" doesnt mean "the only way the world could possible be". Physics focuses on objective (because results need to be confirmed by multiple scientists) and quantifiable (because physics uses maths as its language). If it happen to be the case that there is something in the universe that is subjective or unquantifiable,then physics can't get a grip on it.
I think you are confusing physics-map and physics-territory here. For the sake of Zombie-argument we care about the territory - the actual way the matter in the universe behave, regardless of our epistemological limitations.
Imagine a fully materialistic universe strictly following some laws, which are such that no agent from inside the universe is able to fully comprehend them. Would you say that it is enough to declare that such universe is dualistic in nature, even if there are no qualia involved?
And Chalmers has a version of this argument, in The Conscious Mind...he characterises the physical as the structural/functional.
I would appreciate if you present this argument here or in a separate post, showing how it refutes my point, instead of simply proclaiming it. With a proper definition of "functional" and "structural" in this context, of course.
It's actually contradiction, not falsehood.
Naturally, falsehoods being true is a contradiction.
Recent discussion:
Sadly I'm not able to access Astral Codex now, so if you posted something relevant there in the comments - I would appreciate if you re-posted it here.
A non-arbitrary criterion would indeed be helpful for rescuing Zombie argument from this particular critique. But merely saying the word “subjective” doesn’t help much. You need to actually prove that such subjective things exist in a sense where they are not also objective
No side of the argument has a proof , in the maths sense. To show that physicalism isn't necessarily true, I only need to show there is some plausibility to the existence of intrinsic subjectivity.
and have a method to discern whether a particular thing is subjective or objective in this sense. Otherwise, one can just say that electrons are “subjective” and we are back to square one.
There is debate on the subject because everyone has prima facie evidence that they are some kind of self,they are self aware, they have their own unique perceptions, and so on. It wasn't invented out of nothing.
I think you are confusing physics-map and physics-territory here. For the sake of Zombie-argument we care about the territory—the actual way the matter in the universe behave, regardless of our epistemological limitations.
What we care about us one thing, what we know another. We have no access to the ontologically physical except via our maps.
Would you say that it is enough to declare that such universe is dualistic in nature, even if there are no qualia involved?
I'm not saying dualism is necessarily true, I'm saying physicalism isn't necessarily true. The one is not a corollary of the other.
I would appreciate if you present this argument here or in a separate post, showing how it refutes my point, instead of simply proclaiming it. With a proper definition of “functional” and “structural” in this context, of course.
What's the problem? If you argument is that substance dualism is disguised physicalism in the absence of a demarcation between the mental and physical, well there's your demarcation. Or are you sratating that "structural" and "functional" are meaningless terms?
Naturally, falsehoods being true is a contradiction.
To something. Falsehoods contradict truths, truths contraduct falsehoods. That doesnt mean all falsehoods are self contradictions. You can learn logic.
To show that physicalism isn't necessarily true, I only need to show there is some plausibility to the existence of intrinsic subjectivity.
I'm not saying dualism is necessarily true, I'm saying physicalism isn't necessarily true. The one is not a corollary of the other.
Okay, I think we have a long-going misunderstanding here, so let's try to clear it once and for all.
We are, in fact, both in agreement that physicalism is not necessary true. Likewise, we are in agreement that dualism is also not necessary true.
Now consider these two statements:
I think the confusion that goes on between the two of us, is that when I say "Zombie Argument" I mean the strong one, while when you say "Zombie Argument", you mean the weak one. If you agree that Strong Zombie Argument is wrong, then there is in fact, no substantial disagreement between the two of us on this matter!
So, are we in agreement here?
Either I’m missing something or you have a typo after “Epiphenomenalist version of the argument:”
The equation on the next line should say “equals 0” instead of “not equal to zero”, right?
We can suggest a Weak Zombie Argument: It is logically possible to have a universe where all qualia of red and green are inverted in the minds of its inhabitants, while all physical things remain the same. This argument supports epiphenomenalism as well as the previous zombie argument but cannot be as easily disproved.
This is because it breaks down the idea of qualia into two parts: the functional aspect and the qualitative aspect. Functionally, all types of "red" are the same and are used to represent red color in the mind.
Zombies are not possible because something is needed to represent red in their minds. However, the most interesting qualitative aspect of that "something" is still arbitrary and doesn't have any causal effects.
I think we can use the same method Eliezer applied to the regular epiphenomenalist Zombie argument to deal with this, weaker one.
Whether your mind interprets certain colour in a certain way actually has causal effects on the world. Namely, things that appear beautiful to you in our world may not appear beautiful to your qualia inversed counterpart. Which naturally affects your behaviour: whether you look at a certain object more, whether you buy a certain object and so on.
This is even more obvious for people with selective colour blindness. Suppose your mind is unable to distinguish between qualia of blueness and redness. And suppose there are three objects: A is red, B is blue and C is green. In our world you can't distinguish between objects A and B. But in the qualia inversed world you wouldn't be able to distinguish between objects B and C.
And if you try to switch to substance dualist version - all the reasoning from this post still stands.
You still use function aspect of qualia here – will red be more beautiful than blue.
In my view, qualia are internal variables which are not affecting the result of computations. For example, equation x^2+x+1=0 is the same as y^2+y+1=0. They use x or y as internal variables
In your thought experiment only qualia of redness and greenness are switched, everything else is the same, including qualia of finding something beautiful.
You claim that this doesn't lead to any causal effects in the world. I show you how this actually has physical consequences. The fact that this effect has an extra causal link to the qualia of beautifulness is beside the point. And of course the example with selectively coulor blind person doesn't need to appeal to beautifulness at all.
Now you may change your thought experiment in such a manner that some other qualia are affected in a compensatory manner but at that point the more or less intuitive thought experiment becomes complicated and controversal. Can you actually change qualia in such compensatory way? Will there be some other unforeseen consequences of this change? How can we know that? Pieces of reality are connected to each other. If you claim that one can just affect a small part of the world and nothing else, you need to present some actual evidence in favor of such weird claim.
Of course, the full debunk of zombie-like arguments comes from the exposing all the flaws of conceivability argument, which I'm adressing in the next post.
When green and red qualia are exchanged, all functions that point to red now point to green, so no additional update is needed. I say "green" when I see RED and I say "I like green" when I see RED (here capital letters are used to denote qualia).
If we use a system of equations as an example, when I replace Y with Z in all equations while X remains X, it will still be functionally the same system of equations.
It is still a functional property of qualia - whether they will be more beautiful or not.
In my view, qualia are internal variables which do not affect the output. For example, x² + x + 1 = 0 and y² + y + 1 = 0 are the same equation but with different variables. Moreover, these variables originate not from the mathematical world, but from the Greek alphabet. So, by studying the types of variables used, we can learn something about the Greeks.
We can suggest a Weak Zombie Argument: It is logically possible to have a universe where all qualia of red and green are inverted in the minds of its inhabitants, while all physical things remain the same.
I'd say that universe you describe IS one we're living in (note I'm not using "equal to" or "same as", I'm rejecting that those are two different worlds). It doesn't really matter for anything happening in the universe whether strawberry color is labelled "red", "black", "colF00" or "qualia_fa615f8f", or if that particular quale might never happen, as long as causal network is isomorphic to the original one.
In the classical Zombies! Zombies? post, Eliezer has thoroughly analyzed the so called Zombie Argument and demonstrated its absurdity. So what else can even be said here? Case closed.
Well, not so fast. Apparently, a lot of people, including David Chalmers himself, still manage to take the argument seriously, even though they are familiar with Eliezer's analysis. They believe that Eliezer only argued against a weak - Epiphenomenalist - version of Zombie Argument. But that there is also a stronger Substance Dualist version of it, that is not refuted by Eliezer's reasoning.
In this post we will analyze this version of the argument and use it as a practical exercise for aspiring rationalists.
According to Zombie Argument:
The existence of a Zombie World - a universe completely physically identical to ours, but where humans do not have consciousness - is logically possible.
Therefore, consciousness is not physical.
Regardless of whether the argument is sound or not, it's clear how one can believe in it, while being an epiphenomenalist. A universe, where all physical causes and effects play exactly the same as in ours, and yet there is no consciousness, is consistent with the belief that consciousness is causally inert.
But how can one possibly subscribe to this argument, while being a substance dualist and, therefore, accepting that consciousness has actually causal effect on the universe? Isn't it an obvious contradiction?
If the combined causal effect of physics and consciousness together lead the world to some state and consciousness has non-zero causal effects on the state of the world, clearly, removing consciousness will lead to world being in a different physical state!
Substance Dualists agree with these equations. However, they say, the causal effects of the consciousness in our world can be accounted for in the Zombie World by a difference in its laws.
Haven't we gone through it already? In such a case the symmetry between the two worlds will be ruined! We will be talking about a Zombie Master scenario, where physics of the zombie world is different in a compensatory way so that together with the lack of consciousness it arrived to the same state as our world:
No, no, say the substance dualists, there is another way. The compensatory laws can themselves be non-physical.
Therefore, the symmetry between two worlds is preserved and substance dualism satisfies the premise of Zombie Argument.
And as it is not based on the fact that consciousness is causally inert, it's completely unharmed by Eliezer's critique. Can you imagine how blatantly arrogant Eliezer was to think himself so much smarter than all the philosophers who treat the Zombie Argument seriously? All this time he was dismissing it as ridiculous, while ignoring a half of it! A mistake that a sophomore philosophy student wouldn't make!
If you feel incredibly annoyed by this line of reasoning - so was I. There is something that feels fundamentally unfair about this whole predicament.
There are infinite ways to produce faulty reasoning about a matter, and only one way to produce the correct reasoning. So you can spend hours, even days, comprehensively debunking an argument, trying to cut it off at every possibility, building a clear and coherent model, free of any traces of confusion, so that anyone could be able to understand it. And then someone uses a clever semantic trick and simply declares that some causal forces of the universe are non-physical, therefore circumventing all your criticism.
This just shouldn't be allowed. You can't treat physics as an arbitrary category border around some laws and not the others. It's not what the term means. But good luck explaining it through the inferential distance to philosophers, who were specifically trained to play semantic games and do modal reasoning and think that it's a respectful occupation and a proper way to find truth.
And so one may even feel that philosophy is hopelessly doomed to be eternally confused. That it's useless to even try to engage with this diseased discipline.
If you feel this way, I, once again, empathize with your annoyance, but not with your despair. Remember the basics. Truths are entangled and lies are contagious. Every mistake in reasoning imposes a cost. Every misstep in a dance of rationality is revealing. You may try to hide one mistake by another, but this is only going to make your inevitable downfall more devastating.
Remember your power as a rationalist. Focus your uncertainty and pay attention to your confusion. If you know that something shouldn't work, then it probably doesn't. And if you know what the mistake is, then you've already done the most important part of the work. The last part is easy: to show the absurdity that follows.
Rationality is supposed to win. Not just among people who are reasoning clearly but also among those who got lost in confusions of conventional philosophy. Correct reasoning should be able to cut through them like a knife through butter.
An average aspiring rationalist who has read the sequences should be able to show themselves the absurdity of Substance Dualism Zombie argument. I recommend everyone to attempt to think about the problem for at least five clock minutes before reading further, where I'll give more hints and eventually reveal the answer.
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If the Substance Dualist Zombie Argument hides the flaw of the Epiphenomenalist one, via making another reasoning mistake, then it introduces an extra cost. What is it? Let's compare the arguments and find out.
The Epiphenomenalist version is based on the assumption that consciousness doesn't have causal influence on the universe. The Substance Dualist version is not based on it. This is what allows it to evade Eliezer's critique. But not making a particular assumption cuts both ways - yes, your argument doesn't suffer if this assumption is shown false, but neither do you get the benefits this assumption contributed to the argument in the first place.
So what is the point of this assumption, in the first place? What does it contribute to the argument? Once again I recommend you to think for yourself, if you haven't figured it out already.
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It presents a principled way to draw a category border between Physics and Consciousness.
If consciousness doesn't play any causal role in the universe, but still is a real phenomenon, then it's very special, therefore it's quite natural to put it into a category of its own. Being able to separate everything in the universe into things that have causal influence and things that do not have causal influence is enough to present the Epiphenomenalist version of the argument:
On the other hand, to formulate a Substance Dualist version of the argument we need a much more powerful ability - to draw a category border between Physics and Non-Physics in an arbitrary, gerrymandered way.
The exact thing that annoyed us in the first place. And this thing has truly absurd consequences.
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Okay, I think I've given as many hints as I could give without spoiling the answer directly. This is your last chance to solve the mystery yourself, if you haven't done so already.
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Consider this modification of the Zombie argument:
The existence of a universe completely physically identical to ours, but where there are no electrons - is logically possible.
Therefore, electrons are not physical.
The structure of the argument is the same. But surely the premise here is clearly wrong? How can we have a universe with the same physics and causality but without electrons?
Well...
The same trick that Substance Dualist Zombie Argument does, can be applied here as well. If one can draw an arbitrary category border around one causal part of the universe, one likewise can do it with another.
And lo and behold, we can conceptualize a Zombie-Electron universe with the same physics, the same causal effects, but without electrons, because the causal effects of electrons are accounted for by non-physical laws of this universe.
This should be enough to demonstrate the absurdity of the Substance Dualist Zombie Argument. We've just applied the same method that proves non-physicality of consciousness, to prove a clearly wrong conclusion, therefore the method is flawed.
But let's move a bit further, for the sense of poetic justice.
The general structure of the argument
Doesn't depend on what exactly we mean by . Therefore, conditionally on the Substance Dualist Zombie Argument being sound, we can prove that literally anything is not physical, which in the end leads us to a curious conclusion:
Here we've "outsourced" all causal effects of the universe to the sphere of the non-physical. Therefore, Substance Dualism collapses. We've just "proven" that either Idealism is true or matter is causally inert.
But remember, we've assumed no principled distinction between and labels. For the sake of this argument, they refer to two mutually exclusive but totally arbitrary category borders around causally active stuff. So there is no reason why we can't simply switch the labels:
Therefore, either physicalism or epiphenomenalism is true. But the latter possibility is already discarded:
And so, we've just used Substance Dualist Zombie Argument to "prove" that physicalism is true.
The reason why we can use the same argument to "prove" three mutually exclusive views: substance dualism, idealism and physicalism is, of course, because falsehood implies everything. As the core premise of Zombie Argument is flawed, with enough creativity we can twist it however we like, arriving to any conclusion.
So at this point it should be very obvious that something is deeply wrong with the Zombie Argument. But where exactly the mistake lies? And how did it manage to confuse people for so long? What cognitive algorithm produces this kind of mistakes and how can we not repeat them in the future? These questions will be addressed in the next post.