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Pretty much any modern usage of the term "scientism" is entirely pernicious. Don't do that.
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+Lev Lafayette Wow, you disproved your own thesis: "something can be conceivable without being possible" is why "something can be conceivable" is not a valid argument.
In addition, temporary loss of consciousness is associated with behavior that is inconsistent with the "philosophical zombie" premise. An unconscious person is usually almost completely non-reactive, and when they do react those reactions are rarely consistent with he behavior of the same person when conscious.
I am also going to challenge the assumption that a sleepwalking person is not conscious. Consciousness in dreams (lucid dreaming) is well-established, and the lack of memory of events does not imply that the person was not conscious during those events... memory and consciousness have pretty clearly been shown to be different phenomenon... consider the already discussed case of anterograde amnesia, either due to neurological damage or drugs.
You have not demonstrated that the behavior associated with consciousness is possible in the absence of consciousness. And since something can be conceivable without being possible, simply being able to conceive of it is irrelevant.Dec 26, 2011
Peter, conceivability is actually all that is required as the degree of possibility is actually rather incidental issue on the matter, I have stated this before and your demands to the contrary are illustrative of somebody who may not be be particularly familiar with this area of reasoning. Zombies are very improbable in our world - but that's really not a matter of concern for the reasons previously illustrated with the example of the cheesy moon. See also Gendler and Hawthorne, Conceivability and Possibility, Oxford University Press, 2002 and especially Christopher Hill, ‘Imaginabililty, Conceivability, Possibility, and the Mind-Body Problem’, in Philosophical Studies 87, 1997.
I am pleased however that through the conditionals you offered ("usually almost", "rarely") that are accepting, albeit in a manner that struggles with its own admission, that behaviour can be automatic and yet appear be from a conscious mind when they are not. The specific example of sleepwalking (which isn't that important as such) seems valid (see Crisp et. al., Sleepwalking, night terrors, and consciousness, BMJ, Vol 300, Feb 1990 and Laureys, The Neural Correlate of (Un)Awarenss, Trends in Cognitive Science, Dec 2005).
David, reductio ad absurdum is a means of disproving a proposition by illustrating an absurd conclusion; and that is certainly not the case here, for surely there is nothing absurd as such in the suggestion that consciousness cannot be completely explained by physicalism alone, personal assertions notwithstanding. To give a well-known example a proposition that increasing the income tax rate leads to increased tax revenue can be shown by an absurdity through reductio ad absurdum by the conclusion of a 100% income tax rate - which would result in no tax being collected because of the reduction in motivation to produce illustrated through the Laffer Curve. Apropos consciousness, whilst debated in its finer points (for example, I am an advocate of the the historical and legalistic use of 'being able to make a moral choice', for example) it does have shared and universal definitions; awareness, intentionality, selfhood &etc.
The field really doesn't look like this thread, sadly - for this discussion that is.Dec 26, 2011- +Lev Lafayette Of course the degree of possibility is relevant. It's essential. Without that you can say "I can conceive of a living rubber duck, therefore you have to take my speculation about living rubber ducks seriously".
Accept that behaviour can be automatic and appear to be conscious? Over a short period of time, sure, you can write quite a simple program to fake intelligence over a few sentences, that's able to act as "conscious" as someone suffering from the kind of impairment you suggested.
But one that is able to do so indefinitely, and introspect on its own behavior, and otherwise behave like a 'philosophical zombie'? If I can't distinguish between its behavior and that of a conscious human, ever, under any circumstances, then there's no basis whatsoever for a claim that it's not "really" conscious.Dec 26, 2011 - Peter, this will get to a "yes it is, no it isn't" debate. I have already shown you degree of possibility is not essential for the reasons previously illustrated (once again, the cheesy moon example). All it is required is for the quality to be conceivable to be possible in one of all possible worlds with the same physical facts. I really should not need to repeat this again.Dec 26, 2011
- You haven't shown me any such thing. You're making a strong claim about the physical universe, and expecting me to take it seriously because you (not I, you) can conceive that in some hypothetical universe it might be true.Dec 26, 2011
- Even Julian Jaynes doesn't make the claim that his "pre-conscious" bicameral mind was indistinguishable from a conscious mind.
I can suspend disbelief about this kind of thing for the purpose of fiction, as in Peter Watt's "Blindsight" or Karl Schroeder's "Permanence", but even there Watts' and Schoeder's non-conscious aliens aren't p-zombies, they behave differently from conscious humans, that's the point of the novels.Dec 26, 2011
