Saturday, April 12, 2008

Zombie debates

Zombie debates seem to go like the below

A: standard zombie's are conceivable (etc)
B: you are using an intuition pump
and they cannot do philosophically interesting work on their own and it's always legitimate to dig in one's heels in response to the pumping and deny the relevant intuitions.
A: yes they can - I find them interesting and useful and also intuitive.
B: I could make the same sorts of argument for religion
A: (if he doesn't believe in god) it is not exactly the same - I experience qualia not god.
B: You have the idea of concievability wrong

B: Your theory is not required - so occam's razor applies
A: I'm explaining one event qualia) with one new law (bridging law)
B: it doesn't seem to obey laws of science
A: laws of science don't apply - If you think they do then prove they do.
B: your just trying to make it unfalsifiable
to mention Carl Sagan's parable of the dragon in the garage. "I have a dragon in my garage." Great! I want to see it, let's go! "You can't see it - it's an invisible dragon." Oh, I'd like to hear it then. "Sorry, it's an inaudible dragon." I'd like to measure its carbon dioxide output. "It doesn't breathe." I'll toss a bag of flour into the air, to outline its form. "The dragon is permeable to flour." (even worse - how do you know it is permeable to flour and completely inaudible?)
A: so what thats not proof.
B: [getting frustrated] things are the
sum of their parts
obviously no need to infer anything else.
A: so what thats not proof, and I have my zombie argument which needs explaining.
B: [tired of not understanding what the other side means by qualia an therefore working on defining it themselves] physics and psychology show that thought is part of the physical world
A : so what? you're attacking the wrong question.
B: if you apparently have consciousness then you have consciousness
A: you are begging the question - obviously you are loosing.
B: you are just not getting it...

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can imagine it as an additional Pulp Fiction scene :)

8:45 AM  
Blogger Genius said...

haha which side gets to make the comment about squealing like a little piggie?

11:46 PM  

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