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A big question in the philosophy of consciousness is whether philosophical zombies are conceivable, and if they are, are they also metaphysically possible. I believe the answer is yes. At least, I can conceive of them. In fact, it could even be that some or even most of the humans in the world are philosophical zombies. I would have no way of knowing if they are or they aren't. So, then, my question is, what have philosophers said about this issue, about whether philosophical zombies are conceivable and whether in fact some humans in the world are philosophical zombies?

user107952
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  • I've never read an author who questions that philosophical zombies are conceivable. – David Gudeman Feb 03 '24 at 17:20
  • I think everyone can conceive of them. The question is whether they are physically possible and there is nothing in our experience that suggests this if those humans are made of the same constituent matter and form as us. – Baby_philosopher Feb 03 '24 at 17:31
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    @user107952 These question has a doublet https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/107401/about-the-validity-of-the-zombie-concept/107403#107403, which even further links to other questions from this platform. – Jo Wehler Feb 03 '24 at 17:54
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    Both conceivability of zombies and whether it entails their possibility are controversial and discussed at length in SEP. We can hardly do any better here. – Conifold Feb 03 '24 at 18:10
  • @Conifold The majority of philosophers think it is conceivable. And some of the ones that don’t think it is conceivable don’t even mean it in the sense of it being logically inconsistent. – Baby_philosopher Feb 03 '24 at 18:40
  • @Baby_philosopher Conceivable = Thinkable = Possible. In this case we're concerned with metaphysical possibility. No serious idea (other than obvious stuff like p ^ ~p) can be "logically inconsistent" unless you mean to include analytic truths as logical truths (but do we have any criterion for analytic truths? - I don't think so). –  Feb 03 '24 at 20:38
  • @Conifold I don't think these are really serious objections and most of them assume something like pre-Quinean concept essentialism, whereby one can think X without knowing anything about X. In most cases, Conceivable => Possible should not be a controversial inference. The debate is mostly about other questions. –  Feb 03 '24 at 20:41
  • "I would have no way of knowing if they are or they aren't" - if you have no way to recognise consciousness, how do you know consciousness exists, what is it and what explanatory power does it have? One naturalist view is that p-zombies aren't possible because consciousness emerges from physical state, so you can't be physically identical to a conscious human without also being conscious. – NotThatGuy Feb 03 '24 at 23:16
  • @NotThatGuy But that's not true. Chalmers is (calls himself - correctly) a naturalist. Naturalism isn't identical with physicalism. –  Feb 04 '24 at 07:11
  • "I would have no way of knowing if they are or they aren't." Quite so. It certainly doesn't explain anything. The question is then why the difference matters. Perhaps it doesn't. It is supposed to support dualism in some way, but it might lead us to think that anyone may be not be really human, a person, deserving of being treated like a person. So it is very important that we do not take this idea too seriously. Like Descartes' evil demon, it is for academic purposes only. – Ludwig V Feb 04 '24 at 08:41
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    @abcga Note that I said "one naturalist view", not "the naturalist view". Meaning that isn't necessarily the only view that people who call themselves naturalists prescribe to. Like one might say "one philosophical view". Also, whether Chalmers has a coherent position on the philosophy of mind is debatable. – NotThatGuy Feb 04 '24 at 16:39
  • @NotThatGuy Okay, yes, you're correct. Sorry, I misread. But I agree that whether Chalmers is consistent with himself is quite questionable. –  Feb 04 '24 at 17:24

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