News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs. Parent comment

Re:Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs by toomanydoubts on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @01:55PM (#29488787)
Interesting idea, but I'm not sure I follow completely. Philosophical zombies may have the same "thoughts", but they do not have qualia, they act like they do, but they don't. As for me, I'm pretty sure I have qualia. I've been watching this movie called "my life" ever since I was born. If I were to be a philosophical zombie, it all would have passed in the dark.

I think the phrase "I think, therefore I am" is the essence here. A philosophical zombie does not "think". It looks like they do, but it's just a deterministic result of neurochemichal events going on in a brain that lives in the dark. Something like a neural network for instance. They can exhibit thought-like behavior without experiencing anything(as far as we know).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs by GoblinSlayer on Thursday December 09, 2021 @03:15AM (#29495043)
If a zombie could detect it doesn't have thoughts, it would report about it. This can be done with reflection. If a zombie can't do reflection, that would be an observable functional difference from human, which is not allowed by definition. Therefore a zombie knows it has thoughts the same way a human knows it. A zombie only doesn't have qualia based on the assumption that it's possible to think without qualia.
[ Parent | on HN ]