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P-Angels

There is a class of beings called P-Zeds, which are not unspellable atheist bloggers, but “philosophical zombies”, beings exactly like us in every way, but which lack consciousness. A P-Zed behaves just like you and I, and is identical at the physical level, but it has no self-awareness, reflexivity or whatever it is that consciousness is supposed to be. This is presented as a reductio for physicalism, the position that all there is is the physical. If a P-Zed is conceiveable, or possible, then physicalism cannot be true, goes the argument, because we are conscious, and hence are not merely physical.

There have been various attempts to show that the physicalist (or, in older terminology, “materialist”) is not committed to this, usually by denying that P-Zeds are possible – if you are acting like you are conscious, then you simply are. But now there comes a different approach, one I haven’t seen before (although my knowledge of this literature is scant). I’ll put the abstract up below the fold:

Dave Beisecker

Zombies, Phenomenal Concepts, and the Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment

Abstract: This paper explores the viability of rejecting a largely unchallenged third premise of the conceivability argument against materialism. Fittingly labeled ‘type-Z’ (for zombie), this reply essentially grants to the zombie lover, not just the possibility of zombies, but also their actuality. We turn out to be the very creatures Chalmers has taken such great pains to conceive and more conventional materialists have tried to wipe off the face of the planet. So consciousness (at least for us) is a wholly material affair. What is conceivable but non-actual are not zombies, but rather ‘angelic’ beings possessing an acquaintance with supermaterial phenomenal states. After showing how Chalmers’ recent discussion of the phenomenal concepts strategy should incline those pursuing such a strategy toward a type-Z response, this paper relates type-Z materialism to similar replies that Chalmers has found ‘hard to classify’ and closes with a brief remark about how a type-Z materialist might reply to the knowledge argument.

Beisecker’s argument appears to grant the P-Zed premises and simply embrace the conclusion: there are no conscious beings in the sense the dualists propose, so the argument fails as a reductio. I like the idea of “angelic” beings, but surely they should be called P-Angels? My entire contribution to this debate is that term.

See also this summary review of that special issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies, which is unfortunately not accessible to me.

Hat tip to John Farrell

Late note: Michael Fugate sent me a copy, and I’m pleased to see I haven’t misrepresented the argument. I also agree with it completely, in line with my terminal eliminativism…

4 Comments

  1. Honestly, I find the entire notion of P-Zombies to just be absurd and more of an indication of the extent that dualism has been backed up into a corner. The notion that because something might be a logical possibility is such a weak one that it isn’t funny.

    Note that most of the proponents of p-zombies believe that an apparently intelligent robot would lack consciousness. Ok, then what happens if we take my brain replace individual neurons with robotic duplicates? At what point do I no longer have consciousness? Do I gradually lose it? Is there some special number where all of a sudden I lose it? (Note that Chalmers to his credit sees a similar argument as a reason to conclude that an intelligent robot should be assumed to have qualia.)

    And there’s also the problem that if people really believe in p-zombies, then they have no way of telling if they are a p-zombie or not. They claim that they are not, but note that the p-zombie would make an identical claim.

    I have a deep emotional and intuitive desire to accept some form of dualism, but the fact that the best arguments that people can come up with revolve around p-zombies suggests that dualism is just an artifact of human perception and not at all genuine.

    • John S. Wilkins John S. Wilkins

      I think that there is a serious point in this argument, though: we assign all kinds of interesting intensionality and phenomenality to “consciousness”; but so far as I can tell these are ill-defined and highly question begging, and taking the Z-metaphysics is a way of eliminating these mysterious properties, leaving only what we need.

  2. I’m unhappy with the requirement that P-Zombies be like us in every way. Suppose a computer were able to speak passable English and pass a Turing test but didn’t claim to be conscious. “Aware of any qualia, Zed43?” “Silly guy, I’m not aware of anything.” Note that a P-Zombie minus would not obviously be inferior to a full-blown P-Zombie since, after all, it answers the question of its own state of consciousness accurately while the P-Zombie does not. (A non-man’s gotta know his limitations, as the minus version of P-Clint Eastwood would say.)

    If the notion of P-Zombies minus sounds absurd, consider the case of chess programs. I guess you could claim that they aren’t playing chess at all, just following the same rules on the same board with the same pieces as a human player uses. And they certainly are different in the crucial respect that no computer is going to go Nimzovitch on his opponent and yell “Why must I lose to this idiot?” Chess computers are surely doing something like playing chess, however.

    Perhaps most of the people who propose P-Zombies are motivated by a desire to defend something like traditional dualism; but aside from the possibility that traditional dualism might have something going for it, some version of the P-Zombie idea might go towards an entirely different view of things, for example one that sees consciousness as a consequence of certain biological systems. At a certain point in biological evolution the lights went on. Later they’ll go off. (Note: the notion that consciousness results from specific biochemistry or neural organization does not imply that awareness has no causal efficacy. That’s another issue. I’ve always thought that the fact that there are an enormous number of papers and books about consciousness pretty much prove the causal effectiveness of awareness.)

  3. Dan Hicks Dan Hicks

    As I recall, my answer to the `Philosophical Zombies: Impossible, Conceivable, or Possible?’ question on the PhilPapers survey was a write-in, to the effect of `Actual: We’re philosophical zombies’.

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