How would you respond to the parody zombie argument? Essentially this: A schombie is a being which is purely physical and also conscious. That is, it has no non-physical part. Such a being is clearly conceivable, given the amount of philosophers who are physicalists. But if it is conceivable, then it is possible. And if possible then non-physicalism is false, since it is possible for something to be conscious without non-physical properties. If this works, then the zombie argument can be used to establish the falsity of physicalism and of not-physicalism, meaning it must have gone wrong somewhere.
Could you two please steel man illusionism? Maybe I am slow, but every time I have heard it explained I have found it absurd. Which seems a failing on my part.
One of Goff's claims is that physics merely describes the behavior of objects but says nothing about their intrinsic natures, which leaves a place empty for consciousness. This then leads to panpsychism, which gets physics out of consciousness rather than vice versa (as physicalists would have it). But if consciousness is not publicly observable, like anti-physicalists argue, how can it manifest itself as publicly observable behavior? How can a thing, whose intrinsic nature is not publicly observable, have publicly observable properties? This is something I never quite understood about Goff's argument.
A couple of questions. Since he's worked with David Papineau so much, I'd like him to be asked: Q1: Is Papineau a closet illusionist? And if he is, does that extend to the rest of Type B materialism being just as illusionist about consciousness as Type A is? Q2: If Chalmers' original zombie argument goes through, it seems to heavily imply epiphenomenalism or overdetermined mental causation. How do you get around this?
I couldn’t find a different way to directly contact you, so I figured I’d use this. It’s not a question suggestion for your upcoming conversation, but I was wondering if you’d ever be willing to do a video on **Australian Materialism** ? It’s an interesting and somewhat niche view that held some notoriety in Australia in the mid 20th century and is, as far as I can tell, a sort of non-reductive physicalist theory of mind. It be interesting to see your dualistic sentients analyze/engage with this form of materialism.
I absolutely love that you made the connection between the hard problem and the question of why there's something rather than nothing. I've made the same analogy before and I think it's a very tight one. One question asks why there are any subjects, and the other asks why there are any objects.
Hi Emerson, I am a Christian and just wanted to say I have a lot of respect for you and the way you are open- minded and humble. You are easily one of my favorite atheist/agnostic philosophers especially on youtube
Also one other thing I wanted to ask is do you have books on philosophy of religion for beginners because a lot of things that said sadly go over my head
Thank you! For intro to philosophy of religion books, I’d recommend Schellenberg’s “The Hiddenness Argument”. There’s lots of foundational material there that’s easy to digest. I also love “Is God the Best Explanation of Things?” from Rasmussen and Leon. Graham Oppy’s “Atheism: The Basics” is another good place to look! I’d love to talk to DBH, if his health allows it.
I guess I don't understand why the experience of "what it's like" can't be entirely physical in nature? Or why we shouldn't expect a physically perfect copy of me to be having the same experience I was having?
This is a great video. I feel like I now understand Chalmer’s 2D semantics, as well as Philip Goff’s phenomenal-transparency views. What an incredible feat you’ve accomplished!
I have a minor problem with the examples of metaphysically possible or impossible conceivable. There could exist geometries where circles have 4 square angles as well axiomatic arithmetic where 2+2=5, just like there could exist universes with different laws of physics, perhaps making zombies possible. This perhaps leaves only logic (which is also axiomatic) without which we could not even have this discussion. This is all to say that any "metaphysicaly conceivable" is still rooted in some axiomatic system base, possibly physical.
I agree with the thrust of this comment. The argument that because we have trouble imagining a scenario where volume can exist without shape says less about the limitations of the physical world and more about the limitations of human imagination. If it does happen that volume and shape are mutually necessary, our inability to conceive otherwise isn't proof of that fact. We could easily be imposing mental constructs on a world that is more subtle in its nature. In fact there are some instances where that does seem to be the case. We naturally concieve of space as being infinitely divisible, but at least some interpretations of QM tell us that at the smallest levels space is actually discrete. Such a thing seems inconcievable to me but it would be a mistake to assume that my inability to conceive of this reality is proof that it can't be true. It would seem that the reason this is so hard to concieve of is that we don't interact with the world on the quantum scale so an indiscrete space is an adequate abstraction over a much more complex and subtle reality.
The zombie argument reminds me the Russlel's teapot. Just because something is conceivable or even possible, the proof of non-existence (of the "zombie") is not a burden of the opposite counsel (ie physicality). So to say - I do not follow how from concevability or even possibility of zombies we hence state the physicality therefore must be false. It is still possible, right? HEnce in reverse, existence of physical-only machine with consciousness (a "anti-zombie") is still conceivable and quite possible as well, right?
This just begs the question against functionalism. As with most conceivablility arguments, if i asked you to lay out in full detail how p-zombies actually function, you'd end up appealing to the fact that we don't yet have a full description of how minds and brains are related, and it is in that gap of ingorance that the "conceivability" is doing its work. Just like i can "conceive" of some black box that can take any piece of code and tell you if it will halt or not, or some complex arcane algorithm for trisecting an angle with compass and straightedge. I can't tell you how these work in detail, just as the physicalist can't tell you how minds supervene on and emerge from brains. So if we don't know, surely it could be otherwise! Arguing from ignorance is the main way metaphysicians --and their closely related theologians and apologists--are still employed. Don't know? Goddidit, or, for the slightly less God-happy, non-physical mind did it. Magic, in other words.
Right. I thought I was missing something with the definition of conceivable at the start. How is it not conceivable that technology in the future could answer these questions about physical consciousness? We can't know apriori what we will know in the future.
@@TwoForFlinchin1 If we had some sort of atomic or subatomic level brain scan, only the physicalist could predict that we only find physical stuff acting in the way we generally know physical stuff acts: Quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, gravitation, etc. Everyone else thinks tiny miracles happen all the time in the human mind (humans only I suspect. I doubt they would give any miracles to pigs and rats!). They're impatient that they haven't gotten all the understanding of the mind reduced to terms they can understand. We don't yet know, in other words, and they can't stand being ignorant, and are seduced by plausible-sounding and self-serving mysticizing theories.
Couldn't one make a trivial definiton of p-zombies, basing it on the fact that we can mentally distinguish & separate conscious experience from the behaviour associated with it? A p-zombie would just be the sort of being that reacts to stimuli in the same way a human does, just without any interior feeling. A full account of how they function,should then be possible, even if we may not know how to lay such an account out - we can know there CAN be one because we CAN know that p-zombies could exist.
@@AbsurdScandal that doesn't mean anything if the p-zombie isn't biologically human. The best test for this is to establish that a human can be born a p-zombie and that we can determine that they are one without medical concern or appearance of cognitive deficiency
Excellent video. I have my own issue with the zombie argument, but I think you did a great job with presenting a strong case for it. Illusionism is a good example of a view that rejects the conceivability of philosophical zombies. According to Illusionism, nothing-whether it be an object or an experience-has sensory-qualities/qualia; and if an object (or experience) seems to have sensory-qualities/qualia, it is because “our brain’s introspective mechanisms” have “misrepresented” the object (or experience) as having them. The Illusionist’s position is “clever” (but only as “clever” as a cheap parlor trick) because it interprets “illusions” in a way that does not introduce sensory-qualities/qualia-it interprets illusions strictly in terms of dispositions (e.g., the disposition to react as if the illusory thing existed; or, again, the disposition to judge/believe that we are aware of sensory-qualities/qualia-even though sensory-qualities/qualia do not exist, they only “seem” to exist). As a result, one cannot “refute” Illusionism by saying, “But an experience of sensory-qualities/qualia can’t be an illusion because such an illusion would necessarily involve the presence of sensory-qualities/qualia.” Nor can one “refute” Illusionism by saying, “If I seem to be experiencing sensory-qualities/qualia, then I am experiencing sensory-qualities/qualia.” Against such objections, the Illusionist would be correct that the objectors beg the question against the Illusionist position. The Illusionist “explains” that we can “misrepresent” objects (or experiences) as having sensory-qualities/qualia even if sensory-qualities/qualia don’t exist. The Illusionist maintains that this can be done (without invoking the existence of sensory-qualities/qualia) because (i) the content of a representation need not exist in order for a representation of it to exist, and (ii) a representation of “redness” need not itself be “red.” However, Illusionism cannot get off the ground unless it can establish the truth or plausibility of the following proposition: _"There exist “representations of sensory-qualities” (e.g., a “representation of a red sensory-quality”) that not only do not have the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities they represent, but are themselves totally devoid of determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities of any determinable kind."_ Now, as I demonstrate in my essay, “A Critical Examination of Illusionism,” the Illusionist’s foundation-stone is baseless. (Unfortunately, Keith Frankish has never acknowledged the existence of my paper, despite the fact that I have sent it to him and reached out to him several times about it-surely he has time to read a brief article if he has enough time to pick apart “low hanging fruit” objections on Twitter….But I digress. He is, without a doubt, a busy man and is likely bombarded with countless messages on a daily basis). I won’t bother writing out the entirety of my argument here, but I’ll present the crux of it. In my essay, I show how the Illusionist cannot validly infer (or posit) the existence of “representations of particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities” that not only _do not have_ the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities they represent, but are also themselves totally devoid of determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities of any determinable kind, from the fact that we have had many instances of observation wherein we have observed a “representation of a particular sensory-quality” (e.g., a representation of a red sensory-quality) as not having the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-quality it represents; the reason being that we have always observed objects (“representations” included) as having or consisting of determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities of one or more determinable kinds. However, “instances of observation wherein we have observed a “representation of a particular sensory-quality” (e.g., a representation of a red sensory-quality) as not having the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-quality it represents” is the only “empirical evidence” available to the Illusionist (and such evidence cannot be used to support his “foundation stone” without the Illusionist committing several fallacies). Thus, Illusionism’s foundation-stone is an arbitrary and unwarranted assumption. Far from being a viable option, the “coherent research programme” of Illusionism has the structural integrity of a castle in the air... To conclude, I can’t help but view Illusionism as being a pitiful death rattle of amnesic, superficial, and Boomer-tier “philosophical musings.” Rather than embodying a holistic, historically-informed, and constructive weltanschauung, Illusionism and its early-to-mid 20th century predecessors are, in fact, saturated with unconscious reactive hostilities, blinding “mechanistic” prejudices, and dogmatic scientistic spirits: an unpalatable mélange to say the least. Moreover, Illusionists have a bizarre and disquieting “disposition to portray” their opponents as being “bedazzled” and “tricked” by an apparent “inner magic show.” When I read books and essays by Illusionists, the only “theatrical performance” that I “seem” to be aware of-nay I “know” I am aware of-is the tragicomic spectacle unfolding before my eyes.
Yeah, well. I'm a boomer (76 years-old), and I think I agree with you, so far as I can follow. My only question is why you want to burden an age group with the view you want to attack? That's called imbecilic bigotry. I fall in the general camp that might be called pan-psychism or Russellian monism, a broad category of positions that date back at least to the early 20th century, if not far longer. I see no sign that current generations are any more "enlightened" on these issues than previous ones. Most Gen Z people that I've encountered are either stuck in quasi-Newtonian physicalist mindsets or wacko religious/magical dualist ideas like the vast majority of Western humanity through the last few centuries. I never meet anyone that can discuss monism vs. dualism vs. vitalism vs. physicalism vs. anything else or has any idea how the concept of mechanistic determinism is impacted by non-linear complex systems dynamics, assembly theory, or even quantum theory and general relativity, no matter what their age-group. So, what's with the nasty little slur? Obviously, any illusion would have to be an illusion held by a subject; so, Illusionism is just another instance of question-begging or circular reasoning generally. I doubt that our mutual agreement or possible disagreement on that is dependent on our birth dates. Call me butt-hurt if you want, but I'm more than a little sick and tired of having people assign my political and philosophical ideas based on my demographic, with no actual knowledge whatever about what I think. I personally reject all forms of dogmatic opinion about the fundamental character of reality, in line with the late theoretical physicist David Bohm and the Tao Te Ching, who both propose that the fundamental character of reality is not knowable, despite our ability to learn an open-ended number of facts and perform ever-reaching analysis short of that point. Bohm, in fact, gave an almost iron-clad argument to that effect: all analysis of fact has to proceed from a set of prior assumptions, which cannot have any analytic foundation themselves. These assumptions can be justified after the fact by their pragmatic utility, but it is always possible to construct alternate explanatory hypotheses that are not testable without a further set of prior assumptions. Whatever facts are taken to be most fundamental are either mysterious in being basic and having no explanatory analytic components, or the analytic chain is infinitely bottomless and therefore mysterious in that manner. There is categorically no other set of possibilities. The causal roots of reality either have an inexplicable bottom or no bottom at all. Furthermore, (and this is me, not Bohm) the problem of consciousness cannot be solved in the face of having no fundamental theory of causal reality. Moreover, this situation leaves us with no justification for dividing reality into dichotomous realms of the physical and the conscious-- hence panpsychism. And, just to disabuse you in your opinions of my generation: the majority of them are not physicalists of any stripe, whether Illusionism or otherwise. They're superstitious magico-religious dualists, like the majority of your generation.
The word "representation" is way too vague here. I define "illusion" as "a tendency for humans to produce a particular kind of false beliefs". It's talking about "beliefs", which I guess are a subset of what you call "representations", so it's a more precise definition. Illusionism, then, is the position that there is a common malfunction in the human belief-forming system, which leads to beliefs that say something like "there is an ineffable incommunicable private quality to this experience" appearing in people's minds despite there being absolutely no evidence for these beliefs. These beliefs can be technically called "representations of sensory qualities", but only in a rather trivial sense. The belief *says* that it's representing sensory qualities, that's all there is to it. Illusionism is the proposal that this belief is *wrong* in its attempt to describe sensory qualities.
I have two problems here: 1) based on TCP: "If a transparent sentence is conceivably true, then it is (metaphysically) possibly true". This means that since "water is not H2O is (metaphysically) impossible to be true, it is not a conceivably true and transparent sentence". This means that either "water is not H2O" is not conceivably true, or it is not a transparent sentence. But "water is not H2O" is conceivably true, so it is not a transparent sentence. But even though water is opaque, H2O seems to be transparent, no? So can physicalist reply by saying that "pain is not neural activity" is not transparent, because even though pain is transparent, neural activity is not? 2) It is not correct to say that if A is constituted by B, then it is impossible for B to exist without A, because the persistence condition of clay C is different from statue S, and S can go out of existence without C going out. Indeed, this is the very reason we claim that S is constituted by C, but S is not identical to C, because we can smash S, but C would remain. So it seems, there is an assumption here that constitution is identity.
If you gather Hydrogen and Oxygen in a certain way, you get water for free. But what if you don't know what water is made of, so when you say "It's conceivable to have H2O but not have water," you're simply wrong? What if consciousness is like this, and your claim that we can have physical, operating brains that aren't conscious is just a mistake?
I have the exact opposite intuition about the transparency of our phenomenal concepts, at least how I’m imagining it. It feels like we don’t understand them at all unless we start analysing them through materialism. Like hunger, how am I supposed to know what hunger is unless I also know that I’m an embodied being that needs sustenance. If feels like we always needed to know that, and before we had a good scientific understanding we came up with stories like eating the apple from the garden of Eden making us susceptible to hunger and starvation. We are unable to feel our own emotions in detail unless we have the words and narratives to describe it. Materialism is the language we use. When we learn about how digestion works we learn why fast food isn’t satisfying, and that too much sugar makes us sick, but also why evolution made them so tasty. Hunger is one thing, but what type of hunger, hunger to what end, we can’t understand our own experience without these narrative. We’d be like babies feeling hunger with no idea from where the pain came or how to make it go away. The thing in itself is the material. It just doesn’t seem like that because as adults we’ve already understood the world well enough that it we don’t think about it anymore and we get a lot of a posterior knowledge baked into our raw emotion. All we have to do to break that down is see where it goes wrong, like in drug addicts and the mentally ill. The reason we know addiction is wrong is because it physiologically breaks the body even though it causes immense pleasure (arguments against Nozick’s experience machine follow). When our phenomenal experience is complex like in illness we need to take MRIs and understand where the phenomenal experience is coming from, like they’ve been doing in depression research. With that research you gain insight into the true essential nature of your condition. And you don’t fall back on explanations like demon possession, which people grasping for explanations seems to me like humans as a race have never been satisfied to say that their brute experience was satisfyingly explicative, essential or that they even understood what the hell was happing in their head.
Also this I don’t think is effective against property duelism. Even if phenomenal experience were transparent, we would be observing the essential properties of matter, just at the wrong layer to have insight into the neurobiology. With this thickening of experience and a substance duelist approach I think that materialism can still stand.
Lastly, I just want to punch a little bit of a hole into your definition of metaphysics possibility. I only have a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and I’ve getting into fight about this before, so I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority with this opinion. But it seemed to me that you were defining metaphysically possible with conceivable. Like “imagine any world/set of laws that god could create” I just like so fundamentally disagree with this view. In my mind I don’t think that god is metaphysically possible. Like yea he is ideally conceivable, but lopping him off of existence in any metaphysical system doesn’t register as a loss to me because I don’t believe it anyway. To me the metaphysically possible universes are the ones that I can plausible believe exist after extrapolating a little from the one we exist in. Like can I believe that an immaterial universe exists? I don’t think that makes any sense, I’m sure that it’s ideally conceivable, but I don’t find it very plausible. So when it comes to lopping off conceivable universes with philosophical zombies, yea it’s a weakness, but I don’t think it’s a very great weakness. No greater than lopping off universes where god, or ghosts exist. Honestly it could even be spun into positive, because you’re narrowing metaphysical possibility into the realm of plausibility. Idk it just sits with me wrong that just because we can write something into predicate logic we suddenly have to take it seriously as a possible world. So like maybe possible in a modal sense, but not possible in the actual sense. Which seems more relevant to deciding on a theory of reality.
Lastly lastly, it just seems like this talk of “laws of consciousness” isn’t very helpful. Conceivably there are laws of consciousness and they could be different and they could cause color inverts and whatever. I haven’t looked into the literature, and I’m sure that it shows. The draw of physicalism, it seems like, is that it doesn’t have these sorts of laws, it feels like the whole point of physicalism was to make these sorts of counter factual moot. So under physicalism zombies are ideally inconceivable, and that’s the purpose of the theory in a way that isn’t vicious. And achieves what the theory wants to achieve. Having a bench mark to know when another mind exists is a benefit to the theory. We don’t have to stumble around in our existing world trying to discover the laws of consciousness before we can say if something is conscious, we can just look at facts about their brain, or circuitry, or whatever, and combine that with facts about their behaviour. Irrelevant to what is conceivable it is the most sensible thing to do, no matter what universe we are in. There was a Moorian argument used, but it seems like an odd place to use Moor. Moor is typically used as an argument against skepticism. Like “I have hands”, your argument is for skepticism “I can’t know that other minds exist.” And it doesn’t seem in the spirit of Moor, because we do tend to assume that the things and people around us are conscious because of how they talk and behave (which is exactly what you said couldn’t be done), I don’t think that the striking intuition is on your side. There are people getting fooled by chat bots! I’m not saying that u can’t use these skeptical arguments against physicalism individually, I’m just not sure that you can aggregate them in that way using moor. But moor 😂deeply. I can respond to your intuition. 1. It just seems more useful to approach consciousness through physicalism. 2. Removing skepticism in other minds is sort of a good thing, just like moral realism has its appeal. 3. I just disagree with you on the intuition, I don’t think that consciousness can be all willy nilly.
Although I’m not going to lie, the questions do get to me. What degrees of freedom at there in terms of consciousness? Color inverts seem much more plausible than total disharmony. Why couldn’t that happen? But like I guess there is also a 3rd definition that you could have for metaphysically possible, and that’s sort of like: what is human reason capable of knowing? And I don’t think that human reason is capable of knowing something like the possibility of color inverts. So that might be another reason to lop them off of the metaphysically possible. Physicalism is just the best way that we can proceed with finding answers, even if those answers are wrong. The alternative is to resign ourselves to skepticism. By reducing all facts about consciousness to facts about behaviour and matter, we lop off all of the ontology that we couldn’t reasonably make any claims about. Like the combination problem with panpsychism. There’s just no satisfying answer that we could ever possibly have to that, because the sort of law governing combination is just of an ontological category that is beyond human capability to access.
I think it's worth pointing out that this is only an argument against one kind of physicalist, namely one who believes that consciousness is physical. A physicalist who instead denies the existence of consciousness doesn't believe that zombies are impossible. On the contrary, he believes that we are zombies.
@@redwoodeagle15 In my opinion, you think that you have a consciousness, but you are mistaken. You can only know that you have a consciousness if you can detect its existence. But you can't do this, because consciousness is supposedly non-physical, so if it exists, it can't interact with other physical objects, including your brain.
Sean caroll has a discussion with goff (mindchat podcast) that turns the normal zombie discussion on its head. If the zombie world is trully concievable, where not just people but physics seems to be idetical (which i guess is implied in the zombie world) , that means that whatever concioussness is, it has zero effect on the world (i guess he means basically epiphenomenon). That would render consciousness a pointless concept. The concievability of a zombie claiming with honesty that it loves the smell of flowers shows concioussness to be in fact, better explained as a physical process. Goff appeared flustered ans not quite able to respond to this critizism, so you could talk to him about carrolls position
The same line of argumentation that Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about at some point. He called it the "Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle". Which says something like, "If all the things that *caused* you to say "I have consciousness" are all still in place for the zombie-you, then it makes no sense to say that you have consciousness and the zombie doesn't." There was also some thought experiment describing a demon who threatens you with "If I press that button, you will turn into a zombie, while remaining physically exactly the same", and concluding that you have no reason to be scared of that button.
I don't understand how you could say that a zombie (defined as something that acts as though it has consciousness but has no actual phenomenology) could claim with honesty that it loves the smell of flowers (because without internal phenomenology it cannot love the smell of flowers, it's just saying the words meaninglessly, so I'm not sure how that is honesty)... So I guess you could say that I cannot conceive of what you're talking about. Can you explain further? I'm not really seeing how this conceivable world gets over the hump of the internal phenomenology issue that seems to be necessary for consciousness. Or, rather, I think this idea is straying from the actual question. Whether consciousness has an effect on the world or whether it's a pointless concept doesn't seem to be relevant at all to the question of what it is or what gives rise to it, unless I'm missing something... If anything, this would seem to lend credence even more to the side of the argument that it might be disconnected from physics in some way, since it is a pointless and irrelevant concept in a purely physical world, conceivably.
@@СергейМакеев-ж2н Maybe you can explain further, because just based on what you're saying I don't see how this actually makes any sense. The difference would be the phenomenology that you experience. Living in the time we do now, it's really easy to point to AI as an example. This 'Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle' is like saying that an AI that is programmed to act exactly like you externally, and so it makes no sense to say that you have consciousness and that AI doesn't. Does it make no sense to say that? I think we would have good reason to doubt whether or not that AI has consciousness, even if you could argue both sides. For the button example, saying you have no reason to be scared of the button is true, but only in the same sense that you have no reason to be scared of death. The button will wipe out your phenomenology, because that's the definition of the zombie. What would this mean exactly? Well, your mind then would cease to exist just like if you died, but your body would remain physically the same. Can you conceive of the phenomenology being gone while the body continues exactly the same? Maybe not, though there are many other organisms that we assume have very little phenomenology. But this answer to the thought experiment only makes sense if you assume from the outset that 'no physical change = no change' which is obviously the question that is trying to be answered here. Neither of these seem like very great answers to me...
@@deschain1910 "an AI that is programmed to act exactly like you externally" - that's not quite enough. The principle asks you to consider a creature that contains _all the very same physical chains of causality_ which cause me to act exactly as I do. Got it? Not just actions, but all the causes of those actions. _That_ creature's "consciousness", whatever it is referring to when it says that word, will be indistinguishable from what I refer to when I use that word.
@@СергейМакеев-ж2н So you're just presupposing the very question that's at issue by assuming the categorization of consciousness as a part of the PHYSICAL chain of causality, thereby saying that the zombie is not conceivable for you? Seems like a cop out answer to me. Of course, this issue also crosses over with the question of free will, and lumping in consciousness with the physical chain of causality does away with that idea as well. I know in physicalist circles it's already popular to disbelieve in free will anyway, but it's such an anti-empirical position...
Consciousness, life, intelligence.. words everyone pretending to have profound arguments refuse to provide precise definitions to make sure the arguments will not lead to anywhere in particular and no conclusion will be drawn.
Having experienced Long-COVID this year, and have experimented with mind altering drugs (prescribed and not-prescribed) and my experience is that so many things that feel like 'me' are not ... are merely complex and opaque systems that can turn off and on based on material things (viral infection, immune function, supplementation, medication). So I give away memory, taste, planning, processing, mood, focus, motivation, goals, clarity, inner monologue, attentiveness, ability to visualise, cravings, desire, libido, confidence, control, joy, anxiety .... basically everything except preferences (I retained preferences for media and food that were consistent with me ... but these also are about a history of material exposure) everything else that I could be ... can go away with me still being here. As such I can doubt a great, great deal of the mind, compared to Descartes .... other than its mere presence ... everything that I thought my mind was or could do ... I now doubt, and I concede to my embodiment. So: I had qualia - while functionally being a zombie - unable to even prepare food for myself on many nights. And qualia itself, in a dysfunctional body, an uncontrollable mind. It just so utterly uninteresting. Being a COVID zombie renders all qualia ineffective as qualia must be: attended to and processed and attention and executive function are demonstrably material. Qualia are weak when the memory is so impaired you can't recall what just was What's the point of an inner-subjective life if it achieves nothing? There was nothing about qualia-alone that enabled me to recover from Long-Covid (and I haven't yet) Philosophy only comes into being if we can coherently organise our thoughts .... and that doesn't come from qualia
What I mean is that ... I can have the qualia of being aware I could do laundry, but also being aware of my inability to plan to do the laundry. So some ... material thing, that allows the constancy of planning is the crucial thing
Is there a position that says we have zombie-qualia? That our qualia are as perverted, undead, machinic and pointless as that of the zombie-that experiences a lust for flesh/brains and a capacity to respond to sound, vibration, movement?
Hmm: what if .... the zombie has the qualia of loving the taste of brains, but only possesses a weak working memory - everything in their perception flushes out after a few seconds, but they are able to maintain the motivation to pursue a victim until they lose sight of them and their minds turn blank. Then qualia can be zombi-fied ... it's the extra capacity, to hold in mind, to lay down long term memory that is the important quality of not-being a zombie. I feel quite happy to grant zombies qualia ... just strong retrograde amnesia
57:50 However with the cognitive impairments of Long-Covid, I couldn't know immediately .... the symptoms themselves mess up the recognition of exactly what kind of deficit I'm feeling ... especially when I lose my inner-monologue, usually I would use my inner-monologue to tell me about what state I'm in... but having lost that monologue I'm not able to immediately grant the phenomenal transparency of wide-reaching cognitive dysfunction. Perhaps if I had someone read to me fifty different symptoms, perhaps together we could hone on it it.... but it took me actual months to be able to formulate what I would even tell my doctors.
1:02:20 This isn't true of muscle pain - if you've ever been to a physiotherapist ... you can present with pain and tightness in a muscle but the therapist doesn't care about that because it's most likely transferring down from (back to shoulder to triceps to forearm) or the reverse.). The phenomenal feeling of the pain of a muscle discomfort in a state where the pain is transferred is not transparent. It's incredibly frustrating and difficult.
Ahh yes, what a good way to argue about something unfathomably complex... a deductive proof hinging on metaphysical conceivability and involving "real natures". The little prologue alone is loaded with enough ambiguity to make your head spin. But sure, physicalism deductively destroyed.
This feels like it hinges on the same kind of trick that modal ontological arguments use, Packing a key concept into a things definition where there's no actual way to distinguish if they key concept is actually part of the thing. For MOA it's Necessary Existence: It seems like if we had a world with the standard MOA god in it, but also a god exactly like standard MOA god but lacking necessary existence. There is no way to tell the two apart. For this argument it's consciousness: If I had real Philip Goff, and P-Zombie Goff in front of me, there's no way for me to tell which is which. Maybe this has some interesting entailments, maybe it doesn't. But I deeply mistrust this style of argument.
I don't understand why any physicalist would insist that consciousness is a recent phenomenon, given modern research into animal sentience. Any animal with a CNS is likely sentient.
Does this argument work against property dualism? Cuz I would imagine that I could say, yea phenomenal concepts are transparent, you are seeing the essence of the object, just at a phenomena layer. Like you’re seeing the statue of David, but you’re not seeing every atom. Like you’re seeing fear and that’s identical with cortisol and certain neurological pathways, but you’re seeing them at a layer that isn’t helpful with neuroscience.
We can conceive of physical brains existing without being conscious, but only in the exact same way that we can conceive of a world where consciousness can NOT exist without a physical brain (where when a physical brain exists, consciousness comes along for the ride). This is unlike the statue of David example, where we have no choice but to conceive of the marble existing in a certain shape and David coming along for the ride. The fact we can conceive of both means we don't get anywhere with this, no?
What's the type of physicalist who says that there *are* possible worlds where there is a human species whose minds are immaterial souls, but in *this* world human minds are merely physical brains?
I like this video. Not huge into the topic but ive been a materialist and determinist for a while. Metaphysical Possibility honestly sounds silly, we do not have an exhaustive list of the laws of nature so how could we know the ways in which they could change? In mt view you can't make that argument without a unified theory. True, zombies could never exist and if they did, they would be undiscoverable by definition. So you go with the model that assumes the possibility of something which is impossible to confirm, over the simplified model which just consists of material structures. Ok. I would be curious as to how the supposed non-physical entity of consciousness interacts with the physical body. I mean, if energy is conserved, what is the additional interaction that observed physical processes do not account for? When a specific area of the brain is damaged and it correlates to a specific mental faculty being disrupted, is the non-physical consciousness associated with that physical body also damaged in similar ways or proportions? Also explain psychoactive drugs and trauma? How does the physical world shape our consciousness so much if it is non-physical? What does it even mean to be non-physical if every event that defines our minds is physical? (ie nature vs nurture, both physical events) What is the element of mind-body interactions that can't be explained with a physical consciousness? It seems like a really difficult theory to defend tbh. Thats my laymans take on it, thanks for explaining the different positions though. This video is great I like the editing especially definitely subscribing.
Phenomenal transparency is a weak link for me. You treat it as obvious, or rather, you treat opacity as obviously wrong. But my intuition is not as clearcut. I'd like to hear a more robust case for that premise. One hang up is that "opaque" and "transparent" don't strike me as exhaustive categories, so eliminating one to prove the other doesn't work. It seems like there should be some middle ground between a concept that yields its essential nature a priori, and a concept that yields little or nothing. Why not a concept that yields something but not everything? An understanding that is meaningful but incomplete? Why should it be all or nothing? Also, if you understand the essential nature of pain by experiencing it, that seems like it should count as a posteriori, not a priori. I feel like I'm missing something there.
There are conceivable things and there are real things. One can conceive an unlimited number of things for an unlimited amount of time, and yet, things are what they are, unaffected by our imagination. Philosophy that doesn't live in reality, that isn't trying to be intimately aware of science, that isn't trying to learn about the real world around it, such philosophy is a humongous waste of time, precisely because of the limitless conceivability, which reduces all the philosophical naval gazing to nothing more, but primitive gambling; you can't just take an unlimited number of conceivable things and correctly guess which ones are real, the odds are 100% against you, this is why this is not the method we use to learn about the world around us.
As far as I know, nothing defeats sollipsism? I know presuppositionalists try to get around it by saying that they have veridical, nonsensory experience of their god, but if anyone can prove they aren't a brain in a vat, I've never seen it.
This notion of conceivability seems to hold as much water as intuition. Both are unreliable in our day to day lives, and neither have any place in metaphysics
Do you believe in an afterlife? If not, to say our minds are not physical doesn't really have any utility/value. Just as saying "everyone is selfish" is true, but without utility/value.
Are shombies conceivable?. Shombies are people in completely physical world that have consciousness same as us. If that is also conceivable what is the tie breaker?
Physicalists claim that the mind is metaphysically identical to the brain, and I'm not sure how an omnipotent being could make two seemingly very different things metaphysically identical if they weren't already metaphysically identical. Could God make the number 3 metaphysically identical to a dog, or make a tree metaphysically identical to a game of tennis?
This video feels like it's just saying we can't know everything about how the brain works so physicalism isn't true. This is an argument from ignorance where a gap in our knowledge gets filled with something that can't be explained materially. It's not rationally justified to say that lightening is a product of non-physical forces just because I don't know how it works with the best scientific tools available to me. If you can say that it's conceivable or logically possible for the Gap in our knowledge to be explained by a non-physical entity then it's also conceivable that it is explained but we just don't have the answer or the ability to gather the answer yet. I don't think I've seen evidence of a mind without a structure common to creatures that we label as having a mind.
@@TwoForFlinchin1 the argument appears to depend on the idea that we can “conceive” of people having the exact same physical makeup as us, including brain chemistry, but not having a conscious experience. I don’t see how this is conceivable in any meaningful way. I can conceive of this the same way I can conceive of a married bachelor. It’s mind-boggling how some people are still persuaded by these goofy philosophical arguments in 2024.
Agreed on all of this, but in particular, I was perturbed by the repeated implication that, given some scifi scenario where literally everything about my physical being could be perfectly duplicated, we shouldn't expect the new me to be experiencing me'ness and that, rather, we should expect that they aren't? How could anyone justify that claim?
@@EmersonGreenI don’t think it’s conceivable under your definition. A brain that matches mine, neuron-for-neuron, would produce consciousness. It is not logically possible for it not to produce consciousness, so I don’t find a philosophical zombie to be a conceivable concept. Now what?
@@hiker-uy1bi On the surface, there is no implied knowledge or inference at this time that exact copy of a brain would produce consciousness. Just like we do not know if creating a "machine" with consciousness is possible. If there was an extra ingredient for consciousness needed beyond body it would not then. It may be however possible and I personally think it _is_ possible to create artificial one.
May I ask about conceivability? Is it (negatively, ideally) conceivable that the thesis "Negative ideal conceivability implies metaphysical possibility" is false? If it is conceivable that conceivability doesn't imply possibility, shouldn't it follow that it is possible that conceivability doesn't imply possibility? If it is possible that zombies exist & if it is possible that conceivability doesn't imply possibility, shouldn't The Zombie Argument Against Physicalism fail?
It's a priori that this is false, so no, it's not negatively ideally conceivable. Sufficient reasoning can show it to be incorrect. Even empiricists and (mitigated) modal skeptics I know wouldn't accept that there is no link whatsoever between conceivability and possibility. There are innumerable counterexamples against such an extreme view. "If it is possible that zombies exist..." let me stop you there. If zombies are possible, physicalism is false. I explain why at length in the video.
@@EmersonGreen What if I ask, "Is it negatively, ideally conceivable that your argument (the 1 which purports to show that it is *not* negatively, ideally conceivable that conceivability is irrelevant to possibility) is unsound?" You'd need to give another argument to support the original apriori argument. What if I ask, "Is it negatively, ideally conceivable that *that* apriori argument is unsound?" Your view is stuck in a loop. So, your view must be flawed.
We have no way of knowing whether a viable universe could exist and persist without the precise fine-tuning of the one we live in, a fine-tuning which perhaps also includes a particular mix of good and evil, joy and pain, life and death, being and non-being. When speculating about such ultimate questions, what may or may not be possible for God with regard to what strike us as logically conceivable options, are we not what William James said we were: dogs in a library, staring at shelves of books? And does this metaphor not reveal an intellectual arrogance, bordering on foolishness, lurking behind atheism as opposed to agnosticism? It's often asked why God couldn't simply create heaven without first creating this vale of tears. Yet do we have the slightest clue about whether a perfect world is possible without a preceding imperfect one, as a plant must be preceded by a seed? I have never much cared for the soul-building rationale for evil, given that extreme suffering can shatter even the strongest person...in this world. But the seed-building idea does have some strange appeal to this dog in the library. Philosophers and theologians, not to mention scientists, have not begun to scratch the surface of the hardest problem of all, not consciousness but creation, which brought it and everything else into being.
> the precise fine-tuning of the one we live in, Fine-tuned for /what/? Most of the universe would kill us rapidly, about half of all fertilized human zygotes self-destruct before birth, our major source of natural light also gives us cancer, roughly half of all known species are parasites, etc., etc., etc.. That does not strike me as particularly fined-tuned.
What questions do you have for Philip Goff and I in our upcoming conversation?
How would you respond to the parody zombie argument? Essentially this:
A schombie is a being which is purely physical and also conscious. That is, it has no non-physical part. Such a being is clearly conceivable, given the amount of philosophers who are physicalists. But if it is conceivable, then it is possible. And if possible then non-physicalism is false, since it is possible for something to be conscious without non-physical properties.
If this works, then the zombie argument can be used to establish the falsity of physicalism and of not-physicalism, meaning it must have gone wrong somewhere.
Could you two please steel man illusionism? Maybe I am slow, but every time I have heard it explained I have found it absurd. Which seems a failing on my part.
One of Goff's claims is that physics merely describes the behavior of objects but says nothing about their intrinsic natures, which leaves a place empty for consciousness. This then leads to panpsychism, which gets physics out of consciousness rather than vice versa (as physicalists would have it).
But if consciousness is not publicly observable, like anti-physicalists argue, how can it manifest itself as publicly observable behavior? How can a thing, whose intrinsic nature is not publicly observable, have publicly observable properties?
This is something I never quite understood about Goff's argument.
A couple of questions.
Since he's worked with David Papineau so much, I'd like him to be asked:
Q1: Is Papineau a closet illusionist? And if he is, does that extend to the rest of Type B materialism being just as illusionist about consciousness as Type A is?
Q2: If Chalmers' original zombie argument goes through, it seems to heavily imply epiphenomenalism or overdetermined mental causation. How do you get around this?
I couldn’t find a different way to directly contact you, so I figured I’d use this. It’s not a question suggestion for your upcoming conversation, but I was wondering if you’d ever be willing to do a video on **Australian Materialism** ? It’s an interesting and somewhat niche view that held some notoriety in Australia in the mid 20th century and is, as far as I can tell, a sort of non-reductive physicalist theory of mind. It be interesting to see your dualistic sentients analyze/engage with this form of materialism.
I absolutely love that you made the connection between the hard problem and the question of why there's something rather than nothing. I've made the same analogy before and I think it's a very tight one.
One question asks why there are any subjects, and the other asks why there are any objects.
Sorry responsibilities. Emerson just dropped a one hour video I have to immediately watch again
Hi Emerson, I am a Christian and just wanted to say I have a lot of respect for you and the way you are open- minded and humble. You are easily one of my favorite atheist/agnostic philosophers especially on youtube
Also one other thing I wanted to ask is do you have books on philosophy of religion for beginners because a lot of things that said sadly go over my head
one final thing, do you think you could ever have on David B. Hart because he would be a perfect person to ask on consciousness
Thank you! For intro to philosophy of religion books, I’d recommend Schellenberg’s “The Hiddenness Argument”. There’s lots of foundational material there that’s easy to digest. I also love “Is God the Best Explanation of Things?” from Rasmussen and Leon. Graham Oppy’s “Atheism: The Basics” is another good place to look!
I’d love to talk to DBH, if his health allows it.
Okay, thanks. One more thing how would I be able to contact you if I have any questions in the future regarding this topic
Makes sense a Christian would like this given your central figure is an actual Zombie that millions worship.
I'm a psychology student and I'm absolutely obsessed with consciousness, make more of these and thank you so much!
I guess I don't understand why the experience of "what it's like" can't be entirely physical in nature? Or why we shouldn't expect a physically perfect copy of me to be having the same experience I was having?
Thank you for making these videos Emerson. I never usually comment but I wanted to say that your work is much appreciated!
@@metaRising thank you, and yours is too!
This is a great video. I feel like I now understand Chalmer’s 2D semantics, as well as Philip Goff’s phenomenal-transparency views. What an incredible feat you’ve accomplished!
I love your videos so much. You always cover topics in philosophy that interest me the most, especially philosophy of mind and moral realism.
I have a minor problem with the examples of metaphysically possible or impossible conceivable. There could exist geometries where circles have 4 square angles as well axiomatic arithmetic where 2+2=5, just like there could exist universes with different laws of physics, perhaps making zombies possible. This perhaps leaves only logic (which is also axiomatic) without which we could not even have this discussion. This is all to say that any "metaphysicaly conceivable" is still rooted in some axiomatic system base, possibly physical.
@@michkrom this was an interesting way to go about critique.
I agree with the thrust of this comment. The argument that because we have trouble imagining a scenario where volume can exist without shape says less about the limitations of the physical world and more about the limitations of human imagination. If it does happen that volume and shape are mutually necessary, our inability to conceive otherwise isn't proof of that fact. We could easily be imposing mental constructs on a world that is more subtle in its nature. In fact there are some instances where that does seem to be the case.
We naturally concieve of space as being infinitely divisible, but at least some interpretations of QM tell us that at the smallest levels space is actually discrete. Such a thing seems inconcievable to me but it would be a mistake to assume that my inability to conceive of this reality is proof that it can't be true. It would seem that the reason this is so hard to concieve of is that we don't interact with the world on the quantum scale so an indiscrete space is an adequate abstraction over a much more complex and subtle reality.
The zombie argument reminds me the Russlel's teapot. Just because something is conceivable or even possible, the proof of non-existence (of the "zombie") is not a burden of the opposite counsel (ie physicality). So to say - I do not follow how from concevability or even possibility of zombies we hence state the physicality therefore must be false. It is still possible, right? HEnce in reverse, existence of physical-only machine with consciousness (a "anti-zombie") is still conceivable and quite possible as well, right?
This just begs the question against functionalism. As with most conceivablility arguments, if i asked you to lay out in full detail how p-zombies actually function, you'd end up appealing to the fact that we don't yet have a full description of how minds and brains are related, and it is in that gap of ingorance that the "conceivability" is doing its work. Just like i can "conceive" of some black box that can take any piece of code and tell you if it will halt or not, or some complex arcane algorithm for trisecting an angle with compass and straightedge. I can't tell you how these work in detail, just as the physicalist can't tell you how minds supervene on and emerge from brains. So if we don't know, surely it could be otherwise! Arguing from ignorance is the main way metaphysicians --and their closely related theologians and apologists--are still employed. Don't know? Goddidit, or, for the slightly less God-happy, non-physical mind did it. Magic, in other words.
Right. I thought I was missing something with the definition of conceivable at the start. How is it not conceivable that technology in the future could answer these questions about physical consciousness? We can't know apriori what we will know in the future.
@@TwoForFlinchin1 If we had some sort of atomic or subatomic level brain scan, only the physicalist could predict that we only find physical stuff acting in the way we generally know physical stuff acts: Quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, gravitation, etc. Everyone else thinks tiny miracles happen all the time in the human mind (humans only I suspect. I doubt they would give any miracles to pigs and rats!). They're impatient that they haven't gotten all the understanding of the mind reduced to terms they can understand. We don't yet know, in other words, and they can't stand being ignorant, and are seduced by plausible-sounding and self-serving mysticizing theories.
May I test out an idea regarding conceivability w/you?
Couldn't one make a trivial definiton of p-zombies, basing it on the fact that we can mentally distinguish & separate conscious experience from the behaviour associated with it? A p-zombie would just be the sort of being that reacts to stimuli in the same way a human does, just without any interior feeling. A full account of how they function,should then be possible, even if we may not know how to lay such an account out - we can know there CAN be one because we CAN know that p-zombies could exist.
@@AbsurdScandal that doesn't mean anything if the p-zombie isn't biologically human. The best test for this is to establish that a human can be born a p-zombie and that we can determine that they are one without medical concern or appearance of cognitive deficiency
were so back 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Looking forward to watching this video.
Excellent video. I have my own issue with the zombie argument, but I think you did a great job with presenting a strong case for it. Illusionism is a good example of a view that rejects the conceivability of philosophical zombies. According to Illusionism, nothing-whether it be an object or an experience-has sensory-qualities/qualia; and if an object (or experience) seems to have sensory-qualities/qualia, it is because “our brain’s introspective mechanisms” have “misrepresented” the object (or experience) as having them. The Illusionist’s position is “clever” (but only as “clever” as a cheap parlor trick) because it interprets “illusions” in a way that does not introduce sensory-qualities/qualia-it interprets illusions strictly in terms of dispositions (e.g., the disposition to react as if the illusory thing existed; or, again, the disposition to judge/believe that we are aware of sensory-qualities/qualia-even though sensory-qualities/qualia do not exist, they only “seem” to exist).
As a result, one cannot “refute” Illusionism by saying, “But an experience of sensory-qualities/qualia can’t be an illusion because such an illusion would necessarily involve the presence of sensory-qualities/qualia.” Nor can one “refute” Illusionism by saying, “If I seem to be experiencing sensory-qualities/qualia, then I am experiencing sensory-qualities/qualia.” Against such objections, the Illusionist would be correct that the objectors beg the question against the Illusionist position.
The Illusionist “explains” that we can “misrepresent” objects (or experiences) as having sensory-qualities/qualia even if sensory-qualities/qualia don’t exist. The Illusionist maintains that this can be done (without invoking the existence of sensory-qualities/qualia) because (i) the content of a representation need not exist in order for a representation of it to exist, and (ii) a representation of “redness” need not itself be “red.”
However, Illusionism cannot get off the ground unless it can establish the truth or plausibility of the following proposition:
_"There exist “representations of sensory-qualities” (e.g., a “representation of a red sensory-quality”) that not only do not have the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities they represent, but are themselves totally devoid of determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities of any determinable kind."_
Now, as I demonstrate in my essay, “A Critical Examination of Illusionism,” the Illusionist’s foundation-stone is baseless. (Unfortunately, Keith Frankish has never acknowledged the existence of my paper, despite the fact that I have sent it to him and reached out to him several times about it-surely he has time to read a brief article if he has enough time to pick apart “low hanging fruit” objections on Twitter….But I digress. He is, without a doubt, a busy man and is likely bombarded with countless messages on a daily basis).
I won’t bother writing out the entirety of my argument here, but I’ll present the crux of it. In my essay, I show how the Illusionist cannot validly infer (or posit) the existence of “representations of particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities” that not only _do not have_ the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities they represent, but are also themselves totally devoid of determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities of any determinable kind, from the fact that we have had many instances of observation wherein we have observed a “representation of a particular sensory-quality” (e.g., a representation of a red sensory-quality) as not having the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-quality it represents; the reason being that we have always observed objects (“representations” included) as having or consisting of determinate (or determinable) sensory-qualities of one or more determinable kinds. However, “instances of observation wherein we have observed a “representation of a particular sensory-quality” (e.g., a representation of a red sensory-quality) as not having the particular determinate (or determinable) sensory-quality it represents” is the only “empirical evidence” available to the Illusionist (and such evidence cannot be used to support his “foundation stone” without the Illusionist committing several fallacies).
Thus, Illusionism’s foundation-stone is an arbitrary and unwarranted assumption. Far from being a viable option, the “coherent research programme” of Illusionism has the structural integrity of a castle in the air...
To conclude, I can’t help but view Illusionism as being a pitiful death rattle of amnesic, superficial, and Boomer-tier “philosophical musings.” Rather than embodying a holistic, historically-informed, and constructive weltanschauung, Illusionism and its early-to-mid 20th century predecessors are, in fact, saturated with unconscious reactive hostilities, blinding “mechanistic” prejudices, and dogmatic scientistic spirits: an unpalatable mélange to say the least. Moreover, Illusionists have a bizarre and disquieting “disposition to portray” their opponents as being “bedazzled” and “tricked” by an apparent “inner magic show.” When I read books and essays by Illusionists, the only “theatrical performance” that I “seem” to be aware of-nay I “know” I am aware of-is the tragicomic spectacle unfolding before my eyes.
Yeah, well. I'm a boomer (76 years-old), and I think I agree with you, so far as I can follow. My only question is why you want to burden an age group with the view you want to attack? That's called imbecilic bigotry.
I fall in the general camp that might be called pan-psychism or Russellian monism, a broad category of positions that date back at least to the early 20th century, if not far longer. I see no sign that current generations are any more "enlightened" on these issues than previous ones. Most Gen Z people that I've encountered are either stuck in quasi-Newtonian physicalist mindsets or wacko religious/magical dualist ideas like the vast majority of Western humanity through the last few centuries.
I never meet anyone that can discuss monism vs. dualism vs. vitalism vs. physicalism vs. anything else or has any idea how the concept of mechanistic determinism is impacted by non-linear complex systems dynamics, assembly theory, or even quantum theory and general relativity, no matter what their age-group. So, what's with the nasty little slur?
Obviously, any illusion would have to be an illusion held by a subject; so, Illusionism is just another instance of question-begging or circular reasoning generally. I doubt that our mutual agreement or possible disagreement on that is dependent on our birth dates. Call me butt-hurt if you want, but I'm more than a little sick and tired of having people assign my political and philosophical ideas based on my demographic, with no actual knowledge whatever about what I think.
I personally reject all forms of dogmatic opinion about the fundamental character of reality, in line with the late theoretical physicist David Bohm and the Tao Te Ching, who both propose that the fundamental character of reality is not knowable, despite our ability to learn an open-ended number of facts and perform ever-reaching analysis short of that point.
Bohm, in fact, gave an almost iron-clad argument to that effect: all analysis of fact has to proceed from a set of prior assumptions, which cannot have any analytic foundation themselves. These assumptions can be justified after the fact by their pragmatic utility, but it is always possible to construct alternate explanatory hypotheses that are not testable without a further set of prior assumptions.
Whatever facts are taken to be most fundamental are either mysterious in being basic and having no explanatory analytic components, or the analytic chain is infinitely bottomless and therefore mysterious in that manner. There is categorically no other set of possibilities. The causal roots of reality either have an inexplicable bottom or no bottom at all.
Furthermore, (and this is me, not Bohm) the problem of consciousness cannot be solved in the face of having no fundamental theory of causal reality. Moreover, this situation leaves us with no justification for dividing reality into dichotomous realms of the physical and the conscious-- hence panpsychism.
And, just to disabuse you in your opinions of my generation: the majority of them are not physicalists of any stripe, whether Illusionism or otherwise. They're superstitious magico-religious dualists, like the majority of your generation.
The word "representation" is way too vague here. I define "illusion" as "a tendency for humans to produce a particular kind of false beliefs". It's talking about "beliefs", which I guess are a subset of what you call "representations", so it's a more precise definition.
Illusionism, then, is the position that there is a common malfunction in the human belief-forming system, which leads to beliefs that say something like "there is an ineffable incommunicable private quality to this experience" appearing in people's minds despite there being absolutely no evidence for these beliefs.
These beliefs can be technically called "representations of sensory qualities", but only in a rather trivial sense. The belief *says* that it's representing sensory qualities, that's all there is to it. Illusionism is the proposal that this belief is *wrong* in its attempt to describe sensory qualities.
Emerson Green, non-physicalist partisan.
Emerson Goat more like
I have two problems here:
1) based on TCP: "If a transparent sentence is conceivably true, then it is (metaphysically) possibly true". This means that since "water is not H2O is (metaphysically) impossible to be true, it is not a conceivably true and transparent sentence". This means that either "water is not H2O" is not conceivably true, or it is not a transparent sentence. But "water is not H2O" is conceivably true, so it is not a transparent sentence. But even though water is opaque, H2O seems to be transparent, no? So can physicalist reply by saying that "pain is not neural activity" is not transparent, because even though pain is transparent, neural activity is not?
2) It is not correct to say that if A is constituted by B, then it is impossible for B to exist without A, because the persistence condition of clay C is different from statue S, and S can go out of existence without C going out. Indeed, this is the very reason we claim that S is constituted by C, but S is not identical to C, because we can smash S, but C would remain. So it seems, there is an assumption here that constitution is identity.
If you gather Hydrogen and Oxygen in a certain way, you get water for free. But what if you don't know what water is made of, so when you say "It's conceivable to have H2O but not have water," you're simply wrong?
What if consciousness is like this, and your claim that we can have physical, operating brains that aren't conscious is just a mistake?
exactly. its called the causal fallacy.
I have the exact opposite intuition about the transparency of our phenomenal concepts, at least how I’m imagining it. It feels like we don’t understand them at all unless we start analysing them through materialism.
Like hunger, how am I supposed to know what hunger is unless I also know that I’m an embodied being that needs sustenance. If feels like we always needed to know that, and before we had a good scientific understanding we came up with stories like eating the apple from the garden of Eden making us susceptible to hunger and starvation. We are unable to feel our own emotions in detail unless we have the words and narratives to describe it. Materialism is the language we use.
When we learn about how digestion works we learn why fast food isn’t satisfying, and that too much sugar makes us sick, but also why evolution made them so tasty. Hunger is one thing, but what type of hunger, hunger to what end, we can’t understand our own experience without these narrative. We’d be like babies feeling hunger with no idea from where the pain came or how to make it go away. The thing in itself is the material.
It just doesn’t seem like that because as adults we’ve already understood the world well enough that it we don’t think about it anymore and we get a lot of a posterior knowledge baked into our raw emotion.
All we have to do to break that down is see where it goes wrong, like in drug addicts and the mentally ill. The reason we know addiction is wrong is because it physiologically breaks the body even though it causes immense pleasure (arguments against Nozick’s experience machine follow). When our phenomenal experience is complex like in illness we need to take MRIs and understand where the phenomenal experience is coming from, like they’ve been doing in depression research. With that research you gain insight into the true essential nature of your condition. And you don’t fall back on explanations like demon possession, which people grasping for explanations seems to me like humans as a race have never been satisfied to say that their brute experience was satisfyingly explicative, essential or that they even understood what the hell was happing in their head.
Also this I don’t think is effective against property duelism. Even if phenomenal experience were transparent, we would be observing the essential properties of matter, just at the wrong layer to have insight into the neurobiology. With this thickening of experience and a substance duelist approach I think that materialism can still stand.
Lastly, I just want to punch a little bit of a hole into your definition of metaphysics possibility. I only have a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and I’ve getting into fight about this before, so I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority with this opinion. But it seemed to me that you were defining metaphysically possible with conceivable. Like “imagine any world/set of laws that god could create” I just like so fundamentally disagree with this view. In my mind I don’t think that god is metaphysically possible. Like yea he is ideally conceivable, but lopping him off of existence in any metaphysical system doesn’t register as a loss to me because I don’t believe it anyway. To me the metaphysically possible universes are the ones that I can plausible believe exist after extrapolating a little from the one we exist in. Like can I believe that an immaterial universe exists? I don’t think that makes any sense, I’m sure that it’s ideally conceivable, but I don’t find it very plausible. So when it comes to lopping off conceivable universes with philosophical zombies, yea it’s a weakness, but I don’t think it’s a very great weakness. No greater than lopping off universes where god, or ghosts exist. Honestly it could even be spun into positive, because you’re narrowing metaphysical possibility into the realm of plausibility. Idk it just sits with me wrong that just because we can write something into predicate logic we suddenly have to take it seriously as a possible world.
So like maybe possible in a modal sense, but not possible in the actual sense. Which seems more relevant to deciding on a theory of reality.
Lastly lastly, it just seems like this talk of “laws of consciousness” isn’t very helpful. Conceivably there are laws of consciousness and they could be different and they could cause color inverts and whatever. I haven’t looked into the literature, and I’m sure that it shows. The draw of physicalism, it seems like, is that it doesn’t have these sorts of laws, it feels like the whole point of physicalism was to make these sorts of counter factual moot. So under physicalism zombies are ideally inconceivable, and that’s the purpose of the theory in a way that isn’t vicious. And achieves what the theory wants to achieve. Having a bench mark to know when another mind exists is a benefit to the theory. We don’t have to stumble around in our existing world trying to discover the laws of consciousness before we can say if something is conscious, we can just look at facts about their brain, or circuitry, or whatever, and combine that with facts about their behaviour. Irrelevant to what is conceivable it is the most sensible thing to do, no matter what universe we are in.
There was a Moorian argument used, but it seems like an odd place to use Moor. Moor is typically used as an argument against skepticism. Like “I have hands”, your argument is for skepticism “I can’t know that other minds exist.” And it doesn’t seem in the spirit of Moor, because we do tend to assume that the things and people around us are conscious because of how they talk and behave (which is exactly what you said couldn’t be done), I don’t think that the striking intuition is on your side. There are people getting fooled by chat bots!
I’m not saying that u can’t use these skeptical arguments against physicalism individually, I’m just not sure that you can aggregate them in that way using moor.
But moor 😂deeply. I can respond to your intuition. 1. It just seems more useful to approach consciousness through physicalism. 2. Removing skepticism in other minds is sort of a good thing, just like moral realism has its appeal. 3. I just disagree with you on the intuition, I don’t think that consciousness can be all willy nilly.
Although I’m not going to lie, the questions do get to me. What degrees of freedom at there in terms of consciousness? Color inverts seem much more plausible than total disharmony. Why couldn’t that happen? But like I guess there is also a 3rd definition that you could have for metaphysically possible, and that’s sort of like: what is human reason capable of knowing? And I don’t think that human reason is capable of knowing something like the possibility of color inverts. So that might be another reason to lop them off of the metaphysically possible. Physicalism is just the best way that we can proceed with finding answers, even if those answers are wrong. The alternative is to resign ourselves to skepticism. By reducing all facts about consciousness to facts about behaviour and matter, we lop off all of the ontology that we couldn’t reasonably make any claims about. Like the combination problem with panpsychism. There’s just no satisfying answer that we could ever possibly have to that, because the sort of law governing combination is just of an ontological category that is beyond human capability to access.
48:40 which type of possibility are you using here?
I think it's worth pointing out that this is only an argument against one kind of physicalist, namely one who believes that consciousness is physical. A physicalist who instead denies the existence of consciousness doesn't believe that zombies are impossible. On the contrary, he believes that we are zombies.
I am a philosphy beginner: how does denying consciousness work? I know that at least I have a consciouscness, how can I deny it?
@@redwoodeagle15 In my opinion, you think that you have a consciousness, but you are mistaken. You can only know that you have a consciousness if you can detect its existence. But you can't do this, because consciousness is supposedly non-physical, so if it exists, it can't interact with other physical objects, including your brain.
@@philbelanger2 There is no "I" if there is no consciousness, so the fact alone that I contemplate consciousness proves consciousness
@@redwoodeagle15 Not if you are a physical body.
@@philbelanger2 Then our definitions of consciousness are different. I understand it like it is defined in this video. How do you understand it?
Sean caroll has a discussion with goff (mindchat podcast) that turns the normal zombie discussion on its head. If the zombie world is trully concievable, where not just people but physics seems to be idetical (which i guess is implied in the zombie world) , that means that whatever concioussness is, it has zero effect on the world (i guess he means basically epiphenomenon). That would render consciousness a pointless concept. The concievability of a zombie claiming with honesty that it loves the smell of flowers shows concioussness to be in fact, better explained as a physical process. Goff appeared flustered ans not quite able to respond to this critizism, so you could talk to him about carrolls position
The same line of argumentation that Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about at some point.
He called it the "Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle". Which says something like,
"If all the things that *caused* you to say "I have consciousness" are all still in place for the zombie-you,
then it makes no sense to say that you have consciousness and the zombie doesn't."
There was also some thought experiment describing a demon who threatens you with
"If I press that button, you will turn into a zombie, while remaining physically exactly the same",
and concluding that you have no reason to be scared of that button.
I don't understand how you could say that a zombie (defined as something that acts as though it has consciousness but has no actual phenomenology) could claim with honesty that it loves the smell of flowers (because without internal phenomenology it cannot love the smell of flowers, it's just saying the words meaninglessly, so I'm not sure how that is honesty)...
So I guess you could say that I cannot conceive of what you're talking about.
Can you explain further?
I'm not really seeing how this conceivable world gets over the hump of the internal phenomenology issue that seems to be necessary for consciousness. Or, rather, I think this idea is straying from the actual question. Whether consciousness has an effect on the world or whether it's a pointless concept doesn't seem to be relevant at all to the question of what it is or what gives rise to it, unless I'm missing something...
If anything, this would seem to lend credence even more to the side of the argument that it might be disconnected from physics in some way, since it is a pointless and irrelevant concept in a purely physical world, conceivably.
@@СергейМакеев-ж2н
Maybe you can explain further, because just based on what you're saying I don't see how this actually makes any sense. The difference would be the phenomenology that you experience. Living in the time we do now, it's really easy to point to AI as an example. This 'Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle' is like saying that an AI that is programmed to act exactly like you externally, and so it makes no sense to say that you have consciousness and that AI doesn't. Does it make no sense to say that? I think we would have good reason to doubt whether or not that AI has consciousness, even if you could argue both sides.
For the button example, saying you have no reason to be scared of the button is true, but only in the same sense that you have no reason to be scared of death. The button will wipe out your phenomenology, because that's the definition of the zombie. What would this mean exactly? Well, your mind then would cease to exist just like if you died, but your body would remain physically the same. Can you conceive of the phenomenology being gone while the body continues exactly the same? Maybe not, though there are many other organisms that we assume have very little phenomenology. But this answer to the thought experiment only makes sense if you assume from the outset that 'no physical change = no change' which is obviously the question that is trying to be answered here.
Neither of these seem like very great answers to me...
@@deschain1910 "an AI that is programmed to act exactly like you externally" - that's not quite enough.
The principle asks you to consider a creature that contains _all the very same physical chains of causality_ which cause me to act exactly as I do. Got it? Not just actions, but all the causes of those actions.
_That_ creature's "consciousness", whatever it is referring to when it says that word, will be indistinguishable from what I refer to when I use that word.
@@СергейМакеев-ж2н
So you're just presupposing the very question that's at issue by assuming the categorization of consciousness as a part of the PHYSICAL chain of causality, thereby saying that the zombie is not conceivable for you? Seems like a cop out answer to me.
Of course, this issue also crosses over with the question of free will, and lumping in consciousness with the physical chain of causality does away with that idea as well. I know in physicalist circles it's already popular to disbelieve in free will anyway, but it's such an anti-empirical position...
Consciousness, life, intelligence.. words everyone pretending to have profound arguments refuse to provide precise definitions to make sure the arguments will not lead to anywhere in particular and no conclusion will be drawn.
Having experienced Long-COVID this year, and have experimented with mind altering drugs (prescribed and not-prescribed) and my experience is that so many things that feel like 'me' are not ... are merely complex and opaque systems that can turn off and on based on material things (viral infection, immune function, supplementation, medication). So I give away memory, taste, planning, processing, mood, focus, motivation, goals, clarity, inner monologue, attentiveness, ability to visualise, cravings, desire, libido, confidence, control, joy, anxiety .... basically everything except preferences (I retained preferences for media and food that were consistent with me ... but these also are about a history of material exposure) everything else that I could be ... can go away with me still being here.
As such I can doubt a great, great deal of the mind, compared to Descartes .... other than its mere presence ... everything that I thought my mind was or could do ... I now doubt, and I concede to my embodiment.
So: I had qualia - while functionally being a zombie - unable to even prepare food for myself on many nights. And qualia itself, in a dysfunctional body, an uncontrollable mind. It just so utterly uninteresting. Being a COVID zombie renders all qualia ineffective as qualia must be: attended to and processed and attention and executive function are demonstrably material. Qualia are weak when the memory is so impaired you can't recall what just was
What's the point of an inner-subjective life if it achieves nothing? There was nothing about qualia-alone that enabled me to recover from Long-Covid (and I haven't yet)
Philosophy only comes into being if we can coherently organise our thoughts .... and that doesn't come from qualia
What I mean is that ... I can have the qualia of being aware I could do laundry, but also being aware of my inability to plan to do the laundry. So some ... material thing, that allows the constancy of planning is the crucial thing
Is there a position that says we have zombie-qualia? That our qualia are as perverted, undead, machinic and pointless as that of the zombie-that experiences a lust for flesh/brains and a capacity to respond to sound, vibration, movement?
Hmm: what if .... the zombie has the qualia of loving the taste of brains, but only possesses a weak working memory - everything in their perception flushes out after a few seconds, but they are able to maintain the motivation to pursue a victim until they lose sight of them and their minds turn blank. Then qualia can be zombi-fied ... it's the extra capacity, to hold in mind, to lay down long term memory that is the important quality of not-being a zombie. I feel quite happy to grant zombies qualia ... just strong retrograde amnesia
57:50 However with the cognitive impairments of Long-Covid, I couldn't know immediately .... the symptoms themselves mess up the recognition of exactly what kind of deficit I'm feeling ... especially when I lose my inner-monologue, usually I would use my inner-monologue to tell me about what state I'm in... but having lost that monologue I'm not able to immediately grant the phenomenal transparency of wide-reaching cognitive dysfunction. Perhaps if I had someone read to me fifty different symptoms, perhaps together we could hone on it it.... but it took me actual months to be able to formulate what I would even tell my doctors.
1:02:20 This isn't true of muscle pain - if you've ever been to a physiotherapist ... you can present with pain and tightness in a muscle but the therapist doesn't care about that because it's most likely transferring down from (back to shoulder to triceps to forearm) or the reverse.). The phenomenal feeling of the pain of a muscle discomfort in a state where the pain is transferred is not transparent. It's incredibly frustrating and difficult.
Ahh yes, what a good way to argue about something unfathomably complex... a deductive proof hinging on metaphysical conceivability and involving "real natures". The little prologue alone is loaded with enough ambiguity to make your head spin. But sure, physicalism deductively destroyed.
We're all zombies. Animals are machines.
Is it still physicalism if you believe that pain is a private part/aspect of neurons firing?
I think that'd make you a property dualist.
@@clashmanthethird 😯thank you. I've heard the expression before, but didn't know what a property dualist was.
This feels like it hinges on the same kind of trick that modal ontological arguments use, Packing a key concept into a things definition where there's no actual way to distinguish if they key concept is actually part of the thing.
For MOA it's Necessary Existence: It seems like if we had a world with the standard MOA god in it, but also a god exactly like standard MOA god but lacking necessary existence. There is no way to tell the two apart.
For this argument it's consciousness: If I had real Philip Goff, and P-Zombie Goff in front of me, there's no way for me to tell which is which.
Maybe this has some interesting entailments, maybe it doesn't. But I deeply mistrust this style of argument.
I don't understand why any physicalist would insist that consciousness is a recent phenomenon, given modern research into animal sentience. Any animal with a CNS is likely sentient.
Does this argument work against property dualism? Cuz I would imagine that I could say, yea phenomenal concepts are transparent, you are seeing the essence of the object, just at a phenomena layer. Like you’re seeing the statue of David, but you’re not seeing every atom. Like you’re seeing fear and that’s identical with cortisol and certain neurological pathways, but you’re seeing them at a layer that isn’t helpful with neuroscience.
We can conceive of physical brains existing without being conscious, but only in the exact same way that we can conceive of a world where consciousness can NOT exist without a physical brain (where when a physical brain exists, consciousness comes along for the ride).
This is unlike the statue of David example, where we have no choice but to conceive of the marble existing in a certain shape and David coming along for the ride.
The fact we can conceive of both means we don't get anywhere with this, no?
What makes conceivability a useful criterion for metaphysical truth in some cases, and not others? Is it just vibes?
In a physicalist TH-camr, would you be open to me interviewing you about this argument on my channel?
@@criticalbasedtheory Yeah sure! If you message me on Twitter or Facebook, I’ll get back to you.
What's the type of physicalist who says that there *are* possible worlds where there is a human species whose minds are immaterial souls, but in *this* world human minds are merely physical brains?
Its conceivable that Arsenal will bottle it.
No assumptions required.
I like this video. Not huge into the topic but ive been a materialist and determinist for a while. Metaphysical Possibility honestly sounds silly, we do not have an exhaustive list of the laws of nature so how could we know the ways in which they could change? In mt view you can't make that argument without a unified theory. True, zombies could never exist and if they did, they would be undiscoverable by definition. So you go with the model that assumes the possibility of something which is impossible to confirm, over the simplified model which just consists of material structures. Ok.
I would be curious as to how the supposed non-physical entity of consciousness interacts with the physical body. I mean, if energy is conserved, what is the additional interaction that observed physical processes do not account for? When a specific area of the brain is damaged and it correlates to a specific mental faculty being disrupted, is the non-physical consciousness associated with that physical body also damaged in similar ways or proportions? Also explain psychoactive drugs and trauma? How does the physical world shape our consciousness so much if it is non-physical? What does it even mean to be non-physical if every event that defines our minds is physical? (ie nature vs nurture, both physical events) What is the element of mind-body interactions that can't be explained with a physical consciousness? It seems like a really difficult theory to defend tbh.
Thats my laymans take on it, thanks for explaining the different positions though. This video is great I like the editing especially definitely subscribing.
Phenomenal transparency is a weak link for me. You treat it as obvious, or rather, you treat opacity as obviously wrong. But my intuition is not as clearcut. I'd like to hear a more robust case for that premise.
One hang up is that "opaque" and "transparent" don't strike me as exhaustive categories, so eliminating one to prove the other doesn't work. It seems like there should be some middle ground between a concept that yields its essential nature a priori, and a concept that yields little or nothing. Why not a concept that yields something but not everything? An understanding that is meaningful but incomplete? Why should it be all or nothing?
Also, if you understand the essential nature of pain by experiencing it, that seems like it should count as a posteriori, not a priori. I feel like I'm missing something there.
There are conceivable things and there are real things.
One can conceive an unlimited number of things for an unlimited amount of time, and yet, things are what they are, unaffected by our imagination.
Philosophy that doesn't live in reality, that isn't trying to be intimately aware of science, that isn't trying to learn about the real world around it, such philosophy is a humongous waste of time, precisely because of the limitless conceivability, which reduces all the philosophical naval gazing to nothing more, but primitive gambling; you can't just take an unlimited number of conceivable things and correctly guess which ones are real, the odds are 100% against you, this is why this is not the method we use to learn about the world around us.
If you have a justified true belief without knowledge, how is it justified?
opacity/transparency just seems like apriori and aposteriori to me. anyway this was very confusing
If physicalism were true it wouldn’t defeat solipsism but that’s partly because we could still be a brain in a vat, no?
As far as I know, nothing defeats sollipsism? I know presuppositionalists try to get around it by saying that they have veridical, nonsensory experience of their god, but if anyone can prove they aren't a brain in a vat, I've never seen it.
This notion of conceivability seems to hold as much water as intuition. Both are unreliable in our day to day lives, and neither have any place in metaphysics
Daniel Stoljar ignorance hypothesis places physcailism and anti physicalism with respect to the mind on equal footing
Do you believe in an afterlife?
If not, to say our minds are not physical doesn't really have any utility/value. Just as saying "everyone is selfish" is true, but without utility/value.
Are shombies conceivable?. Shombies are people in completely physical world that have consciousness same as us. If that is also conceivable what is the tie breaker?
My conceivable super model mistress says hi.
😅😅😅😅😅
Do you think an omnipotent being could make physicalism true? At least for its creations let's say?
Physicalists claim that the mind is metaphysically identical to the brain, and I'm not sure how an omnipotent being could make two seemingly very different things metaphysically identical if they weren't already metaphysically identical. Could God make the number 3 metaphysically identical to a dog, or make a tree metaphysically identical to a game of tennis?
It is conceivable philosophical zombies don't exist. It is conceivable minds are physical. What now?
23:50 I know this video
This is theology.
This video feels like it's just saying we can't know everything about how the brain works so physicalism isn't true.
This is an argument from ignorance where a gap in our knowledge gets filled with something that can't be explained materially. It's not rationally justified to say that lightening is a product of non-physical forces just because I don't know how it works with the best scientific tools available to me.
If you can say that it's conceivable or logically possible for the Gap in our knowledge to be explained by a non-physical entity then it's also conceivable that it is explained but we just don't have the answer or the ability to gather the answer yet.
I don't think I've seen evidence of a mind without a structure common to creatures that we label as having a mind.
@@TwoForFlinchin1 the argument appears to depend on the idea that we can “conceive” of people having the exact same physical makeup as us, including brain chemistry, but not having a conscious experience. I don’t see how this is conceivable in any meaningful way. I can conceive of this the same way I can conceive of a married bachelor. It’s mind-boggling how some people are still persuaded by these goofy philosophical arguments in 2024.
Agreed on all of this, but in particular, I was perturbed by the repeated implication that, given some scifi scenario where literally everything about my physical being could be perfectly duplicated, we shouldn't expect the new me to be experiencing me'ness and that, rather, we should expect that they aren't?
How could anyone justify that claim?
I don’t think philosophical zombies are even conceivable. Now what?
you should simply conceive harder
@@clashmanthethird oh wow okay
So...watch the section where I address that specifically?
@@EmersonGreenI don’t think it’s conceivable under your definition. A brain that matches mine, neuron-for-neuron, would produce consciousness. It is not logically possible for it not to produce consciousness, so I don’t find a philosophical zombie to be a conceivable concept. Now what?
@@hiker-uy1bi On the surface, there is no implied knowledge or inference at this time that exact copy of a brain would produce consciousness. Just like we do not know if creating a "machine" with consciousness is possible. If there was an extra ingredient for consciousness needed beyond body it would not then. It may be however possible and I personally think it _is_ possible to create artificial one.
May I ask about conceivability?
Is it (negatively, ideally) conceivable that the thesis "Negative ideal conceivability implies metaphysical possibility" is false?
If it is conceivable that conceivability doesn't imply possibility, shouldn't it follow that it is possible that conceivability doesn't imply possibility?
If it is possible that zombies exist & if it is possible that conceivability doesn't imply possibility, shouldn't The Zombie Argument Against Physicalism fail?
It's a priori that this is false, so no, it's not negatively ideally conceivable. Sufficient reasoning can show it to be incorrect.
Even empiricists and (mitigated) modal skeptics I know wouldn't accept that there is no link whatsoever between conceivability and possibility. There are innumerable counterexamples against such an extreme view.
"If it is possible that zombies exist..." let me stop you there. If zombies are possible, physicalism is false. I explain why at length in the video.
@@EmersonGreen What is the apriori argument that "Negative ideal conceivability does not imply metaphysical possibility" is false?
@@EmersonGreen What if I ask, "Is it negatively, ideally conceivable that your argument (the 1 which purports to show that it is *not* negatively, ideally conceivable that conceivability is irrelevant to possibility) is unsound?" You'd need to give another argument to support the original apriori argument.
What if I ask, "Is it negatively, ideally conceivable that *that* apriori argument is unsound?"
Your view is stuck in a loop. So, your view must be flawed.
You dont know what justified means.
We have no way of knowing whether a viable universe could exist and persist without the precise fine-tuning of the one we live in, a fine-tuning which perhaps also includes a particular mix of good and evil, joy and pain, life and death, being and non-being. When speculating about such ultimate questions, what may or may not be possible for God with regard to what strike us as logically conceivable options, are we not what William James said we were: dogs in a library, staring at shelves of books? And does this metaphor not reveal an intellectual arrogance, bordering on foolishness, lurking behind atheism as opposed to agnosticism? It's often asked why God couldn't simply create heaven without first creating this vale of tears. Yet do we have the slightest clue about whether a perfect world is possible without a preceding imperfect one, as a plant must be preceded by a seed? I have never much cared for the soul-building rationale for evil, given that extreme suffering can shatter even the strongest person...in this world. But the seed-building idea does have some strange appeal to this dog in the library. Philosophers and theologians, not to mention scientists, have not begun to scratch the surface of the hardest problem of all, not consciousness but creation, which brought it and everything else into being.
> the precise fine-tuning of the one we live in,
Fine-tuned for /what/? Most of the universe would kill us rapidly, about half of all fertilized human zygotes self-destruct before birth, our major source of natural light also gives us cancer, roughly half of all known species are parasites, etc., etc., etc.. That does not strike me as particularly fined-tuned.
Back in the closet?
most philosophers reject the zombie argument as impossible and believe in physicalism. weirdo.