Twilight of the zombies

Abstract

A philosophical zombie is a being indistinguishable from an ordinary human in every observable respect, but lacking subjective consciousness. Zombiehood implies *linguistic indiscriminability*, the zombie tendency to talk and even do philosophy of mind in language indiscriminable from ordinary discourse. Zombies thus speak *Zombish*, indistinguishable from English but radically distinct in reference for mental terms. The fate of zombies ultimately depends on whether Zombish can be consistently interpreted. If it can be interpreted consistently, then zombies remain possible, but no test could ever reveal whether anyone is speaking Zombish. Any materialist theory of consciousness is therefore already a theory in Zombish, and is equally confirmable in its human language edition and its zombie-language edition . On the other hand, if Zombish cannot be consistently interpreted, then the zombies described in Zombish are logically impossible. Either way, the search for a materialistic theory of consciousness should be untroubled by the zombies among us

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Zombie killer.Nigel J. T. Thomas - 1998 - In Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak & A. C. Scott (eds.), Toward a Science of Consciousness Ii. MIT Press.
In defense of impenetrable zombies.Selmer Bringsjord - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (4):348-351.
Todd Moody's zombies.John McCarthy - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (4):345-347.
Yes, we are zombies, but we can become conscious.Charles T. Tart - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (4):361-364.
Why zombies are inconceivable.Eric Marcus - 2004 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (3):477-90.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
62 (#234,541)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Dan Lloyd
Trinity College

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references