Thommo wrote:
I really liked it. Didn't agree with it all by any means, but I thought it was even handed, methodical and addressed both Kripke's and Chalmers's conflicting views on their own terms.

If it's too dry for your taste, I'd change my recommendation though and say don't read it.

It looks like a proper modern essay on philosophy, and while I am interested in ideas and fields like ethics, epistemology and metaphysics, I don't find modern writing on these topics anywhere near as interesting in terms of prose and presentation of ideas as that of yesteryear! Even a century back, the style of writing in philosophy was so much more readable for me.

However, it is still immediately recognizable as a serious philosophical paper, and although I wouldn't willingly put myself through the discomfort of reading it, I can still see at a glimpse that it's treating the topic in depth: addressing both Kripke and Chalmers positions head on is a ballsy scope for a single essay as both are very smart guys with a mountain of work behind them. (Although I have to admit I did have a rather disappointing conversation with Chalmers a while back where I wrote to query some of his writing and it turned out he meant something quite contrary to what he'd apparently written.)

If you like it though, enjoy! I fear my capacity for interest ends somewhere substantially lower than this essay though! I'd rather read you summarize it than attempt to read that.

jamest wrote:
No, I got a first for my average performance throughout 6 courses. The irony is, no surprise, that whomever marked my particular assignment relevant to zombies for that course didn't like my answer/attitude, just like yourself.

They probably found your position on this to be ill-considered and not well argued.

Do you really find P-Zombies conceivable (I think you do not) but P-Zombies creating chocolate factories inconceivable?
There would be a lot to discuss there, but I doubt we could even agree on the definition of P-Zombie.

To expand on the point, by definition P-Zs are behaviourally indistinguishable from "real humans" and "real humans" create things like chocolate factories therefore, by definition, P-Zs create things like chocolate factories. P-Zs can converse entirely convincingly about an "inner subjective life" of wants and desires, tastes and emotions. That is required by the definition. You obviously reject that so you find P-Zs so defined are inconceivable.

From the OP:

jamest wrote:
My bottom-line, if you've read the link, is that zombies wouldn't have created chocolate factories. Why? Because they're neither creative nor have sensations such as those associated with specific substances such as chocolate, which we generally love.

That is to say, P-Zs would not behave like humans, which is a contradiction of the definition of P-Zs.

Good luck!

Not all humans create chocolate factories, I certainly haven't. Has anyone here created a chocolate factory? Hang on, does anyone here even know a human who created a chocolate factory? Maybe it isn't humans who create the chocolate factories at all, maybe it's aliens. Or maybe we're P-Zombies. How do we know P-Zombies don't think? Who made up that rule? We could be sitting here, thinking we're human, but we're not because not a single fucking ONE of us ever created a chocolate factory.

"Brains, brains for lunch, brains for breakfast brains for brunch, brains are all we ever get why can't we have some guts, oi oi oi!!"
Chocolate covered p-brains for lunch y'all.

laklak wrote:Not all humans create chocolate factories, I certainly haven't. Has anyone here created a chocolate factory? Hang on, does anyone here even know a human who created a chocolate factory? Maybe it isn't humans who create the chocolate factories at all, maybe it's aliens. Or maybe we're P-Zombies. How do we know P-Zombies don't think? Who made up that rule? We could be sitting here, thinking we're human, but we're not because not a single fucking ONE of us ever created a chocolate factory.

The guy who used to live next door had a role in creating chocolate factories (he ran a company that made the machines they use to melt and mix the chocolate and saw to their installation, including in new factories, or something like that). Now I think about it he might have been a zombie though.

And if that Willy Wonka bloke isn't a zombie I'll eat my hat. Always thought he was weird.

In a sense all fictional characters are P-Zs that behave like humans without being conscious in themselves. So Willy Wonka is a zombie.

GrahamH wrote:In a sense all fictional characters are P-Zs that behave like humans without being conscious in themselves. So Willy Wonka is a zombie.

except that fictional characters are distinguishable from humans, in that humans exist.

scott1328 wrote:

GrahamH wrote:In a sense all fictional characters are P-Zs that behave like humans without being conscious in themselves. So Willy Wonka is a zombie.

except that fictional characters are distinguishable from humans, in that humans exist.

Fictional characters are not necessarily distinguishable from humans from a description of their behaviour.
Obviously they aren't physically present and you can't interact with them.

How about actors expressing thoughts and emotions from a script that are not things they are actually experiencing. If Danny KayeGene Wilder as Willy Wonka creates a chocolate factory it isn't because of his own qualia experience.

I wrote that amid thoughts of jamest solipsism where people are puppets with no consciousness of their own. There everyone is a P-Z unless or until the OneGod slips on that character and enters first person mode.

Anyway, these are only musings, not arguments.

The semi-serious aspect of this is we can imagine that a person's convincingly human behaviour might be driven by something other than internal subjective qualia consciousness. One such possibility is that it is driven by a physical brain.

That you think Danny Kaye played Willie Wonka and not Gene Wilder leaves me in such a confused and appalled state that all your postings on this forum are thrown into doubt.

scott1328 wrote:That you think Danny Kaye played Willie Wonka and not Gene Wilder leaves me in such a confused and appalled state that all your postings on this forum are thrown into doubt.

Worrying, isn't it?
Thanks for the correction. Have a lollipop.

You see, James? This is how to behave when you find out you’re wrong about something.

The problem being, jamest is wrong all the time...