is anyone home?

A philosophical zombie is not the film kind. It is a hypothetical being physically identical to you, down to every neuron, that behaves exactly as you do, says “I am conscious” exactly as sincerely, and yet has no inner life whatsoever: no pain that hurts, no red that looks like anything. David Chalmers uses the idea to argue that consciousness is not purely physical. Others think the idea is incoherent. Mark each claim true or false, and see which of your commitments collide.

1. 01

   I can coherently imagine a physical duplicate of me that has no conscious experience at all.

   Chalmers: if you can’t find a contradiction in the idea, it is “conceivable”.

   truefalseundecided
2. 02

   If something is genuinely, carefully conceivable without any hidden contradiction, then it is metaphysically possible.

   the bridge principle from imagination to possibility, defended by Chalmers, doubted by many.

   truefalseundecided
3. 03

   The physical facts about the world, once fixed, fix every other fact, including the facts about consciousness.

   a standard statement of physicalism.

   truefalseundecided
4. 04

   I know, more certainly than I know anything else, that I am conscious.

   the Cartesian starting point.

   truefalseundecided
5. 05

   My zombie twin would say “I am conscious” just as confidently and for exactly the same physical reasons as I do.

   by definition: it is physically identical, so its mouth and brain do the same things.

   truefalseundecided
6. 06

   Everything I say about my own consciousness can be fully explained by physical processes in my brain.

   truefalseundecided
7. 07

   My conscious experiences are what cause me to say that I am conscious.

   the intuitive, common-sense view of why we talk about experience at all.

   truefalseundecided