Hi Cecilea

Thank you for your reply.

I certainly recognise that, as you say, discussions about zombies do occur. But discussions occur about all manner of things real and unreal, so that in itself can’t be a reason why it is philosophically sensible to carry on philosophical discussions about zombies. Frankly, philosophers talking about zombies strikes me as the equivalent of the characters in the Big Bang Theory arguing about what superman could or couldn’t do. In both cases Hollywood fantasies are being taken seriously. Though at least Sheldon and his crew have the excuse of being Hollywood fantasies themselves.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “your interpretation of Chalmers' reliance on zombies”. I wasn’t interpreting Chalmers. That was a direct quote.  I think you are right in saying that “zombies are thought experiments that are supposed to incite our intuitions regarding what consciousness is.” But there are two problems here:

First, the term “experiment” is misleading. How does one “experiment” with a Hollywood fantasy?

Second, as I indicated, the idea of a zombie – such as it is – is defined as a human being minus consciousness.  If the idea of consciousness is necessary to define a zombie, how could we use the idea of a zombie to help us define consciousness?

I don’t know whether the story about medieval philosophers debating how many angels could pass through the eye of a needle is apocryphal or not. But philosophical speculation about zombies strikes me as the modern-day equivalent. (Though the Middle Ages could perhaps be excused. They really did believe in angels...)

DA