Fiona, for the purposes of her very interesting paper, suggests that zombies, as defined in philosophy,
are functionally identical to particular human beings, but lack all states with phenomenal character.

This is part of my difficulty with understanding zombies, I confess.

Functional states are individuated partly by their characteristic inputs (e.g. tissue damage is
part of what makes the functional state pain the functional state it is).

But I think it's plain that qualia are the characteristic inputs to many of our functional states.
I smile when I eat ice cream and ask for more, because I like the way it tastes.
I fear the dentist because I don't like the way what she does to me feels.
I say: 'That's Burgundy 1973' (or whatever) because I recognize the phenomenal
character of its taste.

It follows immediately that zombies cannot be functionally identical to particular human
beings, me, anyhow, since they don't have the inputs that partly individuate a good
number of the functional states we're in.

Even if the zombie has the same output and intermediate states to a characteristically
different input (an ersatz phenomenal state, say), that's not the functional state I'm in.

It's no use objecting that qualia are extra-physical and so aren't inputs of functional states (due to the Causal Closure of the Physical) because,
that's one of the questions we're investigating and for all we know qualia are
physical characteristics of brain states. Indeed, quite a few philosophers think
that's just what they are.

So I have some trouble getting my zombies to the starting line, as it were.
I expect I am misunderstanding something.