Philosophical Zombies

[Consul]

We all believe that at least to some extent, our bodies and brains function according to physical cause-and-effect.

Yes, animal organisms are run by neurophysiological mechanisms.

Most of the example above can be understood in terms of these physical cause-and-effect chains: the particles of coffee wafting, the olfactory bulb stimulated, other neurological events that we understand well, and then at some point - a question mark. The magic happens: a subjective experience. And then from there, well-understood neurological events happen culminating in the vocal utterance about loving the smell. From the perspective of a scientist who is not just listening to the individual casually in a cafe but also has an assortment of brain-measuring devices, most of what is seen happening may well be in a zombie for all he knows.

"The philosopher Georges Rey once told me that he has no sentient experiences. He lost them after a bicycle accident when he was 15. Since then, he insists, he has been a zombie. I assume he is speaking tongue-in-cheek, but of course I have no way of knowing, and that is his point." - Pinker, How the Mind Works

Rey is one of the very few who expressly endorse eliminative materialism:

"I and a few others are prepared to conclude…that there really are no phenomena answering to our usual concepts of qualia, consciousness and experience."

(Rey, Georges. "Better to Study Human Than World Psychology." In: Galen Strawson et al., Consciousness and its Place in Nature, edited by Anthony Freeman, 110-116. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2006. p. 113)

But:

"If 'consciousness' means conscious experience in the concrete, the proposition 'Consciousness does not exist' shows itself 'absurd and impossible' by the fundamental canons of science, philosophy, and common sense. Either the proposition, therefore, is false, or it entails the most searching scientific revolution ever envisioned, not merely in psychology but in all human concept-systems and all logical and scientific methodology. Such revision, although not impossible, is greater than any attempted by a Plato, a Darwin, or an Einstein. Its positive nature I cannot conjecture, and the behaviorists themselves have shown small interest or aptitude for it. Finally, even if it were accomplished, it must be so complex that no conceivable psychological advantage would warrant its substitution for the current scheme. No living man, I think, ever seriously thought through so recondite a possibility."

(Williams, Donald Cary. "The Existence of Consciousness." In Principles of Empirical Realism: Philosophical Essays, 23-40. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1966. p. 30)

The true hunt must be for whatever in the observer's mind decides that the coffee-smeller is conscious and not a zombie.

This reminds me of Daniel Dennett and his "intentional stance" (see the quote below!). Although he emphatically denies being an eliminativist about (phenomenal) consciousness, many of his colleagues (such as John Searle) think he is—and so do I.

"Materialists, after a lot of beating around the bush, do typically end up by denying the existence of consciousness, even though most of them are too embarrassed to come right out and say: 'Consciousness does not exist. No human or animal has ever been conscious.' Instead, they redefine 'consciousness' so that it no longer refers to inner, qualitative, subjective mental states but rather to some third-person phenomena, phenomena that are neither inner, qualitative, nor subjective in the senses I have explained. Consciousness is reduced to the behavior of the body, to computational states of the brain, information processing, or functional states of a physical system. Daniel Dennett is typical of materialists in this regard. Does consciousness exist for Dennett? He would never deny it. And what is it? Well, it is a certain bunch of computer programs implemented in the brain.
Such answers, I am afraid, will not do. Consciousness is an inner, subjective, first-person, qualitative phenomenon. Any account of consciousness that leaves out these features is not an account of consciousness but of something else."

(Searle, John. Mind, Language and Society: Philosophy in the Real World. London: Phoenix, 2000. p. 50)

"The extreme anti-mentalism of his views has been missed by several of Dennett's critics, who have pointed out that, according to his theory, he cannot distinguish between human beings and unconscious zombies who behaved exactly as if they were human beings. Dennett's riposte is to say that there could not be any such zombies, that any machine regardless of what it is made of that behaved like us would have to have consciousness just as we do. This looks as if he is claiming that sufficiently complex zombies would not be zombies but would have inner conscious states the same as ours; but that is emphatically not the claim he is making. His claim is that in fact we are zombies, that there is no difference between us and machines that lack conscious states in the sense I have explained. The claim is not that the sufficiently complex zombie would suddenly come to conscious life, just as Galatea was brought to life by Pygmalion. Rather, Dennett argues that there is no such thing as conscious life, for us, for animals, for zombies, or for anything else; there is only complex zombiehood."
(pp. 106-7)

"Dennett denies the existence of consciousness. He continues to use the word, but he means something different by it. For him, it refers only to third-person phenomena, not to the first-person conscious feelings and experiences we all have. For Dennett there is no difference between us humans and complex zombies who lack inner feelings, because we are all just complex zombies."
(p. 120)

(Searle, John R. The Mystery of Consciousness. New York: The New York Review of Books, 1997.)

—

"Daniel Dennett advocates an approach to the mind that at first glance might appear similar to Davidson’s. That appearance, as will become evident, is misleading. Dennett’s concern is to further a scientifically informed account of the mind. Like Davidson, he insists on distinguishing practices of propositional attitude ascription from systematic attempts to understand the mechanisms responsible for intelligent action. Unlike Davidson, however, Dennett regards the ascription of propositional attitudes – beliefs, desires, intentions – as constrained only by a weak requirement of ‘rationality’. We can correctly and legitimately ascribe propositional attitudes to any system – animal, vegetable, or mineral – the behavior of which could be construed as rational in light of the system’s ‘ends’. The result is a deliberately ‘instrumentalist’ approach to the mind. (The significance of all this will emerge in the discussion to follow.)

Taking a stance: According to Dennett, a creature’s having a mind is strictly a matter of our usefully regarding the creature as having a mind. This amounts, in practice, to our treating the creature as ‘one of us’: a being with various (mostly true) beliefs about the world and desires for particular states of affairs; a creature that acts reasonably in light of those beliefs and desires. You observe a robin hunting worms in the garden. You explain – that is, make sense of – the robin’s behavior by supposing that the robin is hungry and so seeking food. The robin believes that worms are food, believes that worms are to be found in the garden, and in consequence desires to hunt worms in the garden. The robin, in sum, acts reasonably in light of its beliefs and desires.

In explaining the robin’s behavior by reference to beliefs and desires, you are adopting what Dennett calls the ‘intentional stance’. This ‘stance’ is one we take up in order to make sense of and predict the behavior of any creature. Why is that octopus emitting a black inky substance? Because the octopus believes it has been spotted by a predator, wants to protect itself, believes it can do so by placing a dark cloud between it and the predator, and believes that by emitting an inky fluid it will cause a dark cloud to come between it and the predator. Why is this white blood cell enveloping that microbe? Because the cell wants to destroy invaders, believes the microbe is an invader, and so wants to destroy it. For its own part, the microbe wants to invade a red blood cell, believes that it is likely to find a red blood cell by swimming about randomly in the bloodstream, and so swims randomly.

Do robins, octopodes, and white blood cells really have beliefs and desires? Do such organisms really behave rationally? Or do they merely behave as if they had beliefs and desires (and act reasonably in light of these)? Dennett regards questions of this sort as wrong-headed. Having beliefs and desires amounts to nothing more than being explicable via the intentional stance. If we can make sense of the behavior of a microbe by taking up the intentional stance toward its activities, then the microbe does indeed have beliefs and desires, hence reasons for what it does.

You might object. If this is what having beliefs, desires, and reasons amounts to, then plants must have beliefs, desires, and reasons, too! This elm sinks its roots deep into the soil because it wants to find water and believes that water is likely to be found at greater depths. More startlingly, perhaps, on a view of this sort what is to prevent artifacts – your desktop computer, or even a lowly thermostat – from having beliefs and desires? Your desktop computer is displaying a ‘printer is out of paper’ alert because it believes that the printer is out of paper, and wants to let you know. The thermostat turns on the furnace because it believes that the room temperature has dropped below 21°C, and it wants to increase the temperature to at least 21°C.

You might concede that although we do talk this way on occasion, we do so merely as a matter of convenience. We can see single-celled organisms, plants, and artifacts as loosely analogous to rational agents in certain ways. Thus, we speak of them as if they were like us in those ways. But of course they are not really like us. Their behavior is governed by simpler mechanisms. To imagine that they have – really have – beliefs and desires, to suppose that they have – really have – reasons for what they do, is to confuse the metaphorical with the literal.

Dennett insists, however, that ascriptions of beliefs and desires to single-celled organisms, plants, and artifacts are no more metaphorical than is the ascription of beliefs and desires to our fellow human beings. All there is to an entity’s having beliefs and desires, all there is to an entity’s acting on reasons, is the entity’s behaving as if it had beliefs and desires and acted on reasons. In ascribing beliefs, desires, and reasons to organisms or objects, we take up the intentional stance. The intentional stance enables us to make sense of and predict the behavior of whatever falls under it. But it will do this quite independently of whether those entities have an internal makeup resembling ours.

A view of this sort construes the propositional attitudes ‘instrumentally’. That is, the correctness of an attribution of beliefs, desires, and reasons for action lies not in its corresponding to some independent fact or state of affairs, but in its serviceability. To the extent that the practice of ascribing propositional attitudes serves our interests – enables us to make sense of and predict the behavior of objects with which we interact – it is fully justified. To expect anything more, to take a baldly ‘realist’ line on beliefs, desires, and reasons for action, is to miss the point of the practice."

(Heil, John. Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. pp. 155-7)

[Chili]

I've heard enough of Dennett that I just scoff when I see his name. His writings are indeed rife with contradictions and other conveniences.

For the individual, there are these 2 irreconcilable dimensions:

* the objective realm, in which reductionism marches on, and in which "consciousness" is a non-sequitur, in which other persons are better and better explained as machines - as is oneself when viewed after the fact through recordings of scientific examinations and measurements

* the subjective realm, which is undeniable, which is directly experienced, which there is no real "evidence" anything other than this exists

Many scientists are seduced by the successes of science to imagine that science can explain everything, including this subjective realm, for which there is no objective evidence.

[Consul]

I've heard enough of Dennett that I just scoff when I see his name. His writings are indeed rife with contradictions and other conveniences.

For the individual, there are these 2 irreconcilable dimensions:

* the objective realm, in which reductionism marches on, and in which "consciousness" is a non-sequitur, in which other persons are better and better explained as machines - as is oneself when viewed after the fact through recordings of scientific examinations and measurements

* the subjective realm, which is undeniable, which is directly experienced, which there is no real "evidence" anything other than this exists

Many scientists are seduced by the successes of science to imagine that science can explain everything, including this subjective realm, for which there is no objective evidence.

The existence of subjective experience is self-evident, and to demand (empirical) evidence for something else is to presuppose it, since (empirical) evidence = experience.

But what exactly do you mean by "objective evidence"? To use Searle's distinction between epistemic/epistemological objectivity/subjectivity and ontic/ontological objectivity/subjectivity, it is an epistemically objective fact that there is such a thing as ontically subjective experience. Of course, that epistemically objective fact is based on introspection rather than on external sensory perception or observation. Do you mean to say that objective evidence = sense-perceptual evidence?

Note that the question Is there such a thing as subjective experience (in the world)? is different from the question Is this thing a subject of experience?. As for the latter, as I already said, there can be sense-perceptual (behavioral or physiological/neurological) evidence for a thing's being (or not being) a subject of experience. So a natural science of consciousness is not an impossibility.

—

"There are two quite distinct senses of the distinction between objective and subjective. In one sense, which I will call the epistemological sense, there is a distinction between objective knowledge, and subjective matters of opinion. If I say, for example, 'Rembrandt was born in 1606', that statement is epistemically objective in the sense that it can be established as true or false independently of the attitudes, feelings, opinions or prejudices of the agents investigating the question. If I say 'Rembrandt was a better painter than Rubens', that claim is not a matter of objective knowledge, but is a matter of subjective opinion. But in addition to the distinction between epistemically objective and subjective claims, there is a distinction between entities in the world that have an objective existence, such as mountains and molecules, and entities that have a subjective existence, such as pains and tickles. I call this distinction in modes of existence, the ontological sense of the objective/subjective distinction.
Science is indeed epistemically objective in the sense that scientists attempt to establish truths which can be verified independently of the attitudes and prejudices of the scientists. But epistemic objectivity of method does not preclude ontological subjectivity of subject matter. Thus there is no objection in principle to having an epistemically objective science of an ontologically subjective domain, such as human consciousness."

(Searle, John R. "The Future of Philosophy." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B354 (1999): 2069-2080. p. 2074)

-- Updated October 29th, 2017, 12:11 pm to add the following --

"The fact that conscious states are ontologically subjective, in the sense that they exist only as experienced by a human or animal subject, does not imply that there cannot be a scientifically objective study of conscious states. …The mode of existence of conscious states is indeed ontologically subjective, but ontological subjectivity of the subject matter does not preclude an epistemically objective science of that very subject matter. Indeed, the whole science of neurology requires that we try to seek an epistemically objective scientific account of pains, anxieties, and other afflictions that patients suffer from in order that we can treat these with medical techniques. Whenever I hear philosophers and neurobiologists say that science cannot deal with subjective experiences I always want to show them textbooks in neurology where the scientists and doctors who write and use the books have no choice but to try to give a scientific account of people’s subjective feelings, because they are trying to help actual patients who are suffering."

(Searle, John. Mind: A Brief Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 135-6)

-- Updated October 29th, 2017, 12:15 pm to add the following --

There is no sound a priori reason to deny that a neuroscientific explanation of consciousness is possible.

[Chili]

Technology marches on toward creating behaviors of the type which lead the average person to conclude that the system's subjective experience is "self-evident".

One has direct experience of one's own subjective experience. As for other subjective experience, it is merely assumed, or at best the result of intuition or some psychic sense. Hand-waving won't make that simple fact go away.

What you refer to as being "self-evident" is self-evidently "life unexamined."

You don't know in any "self-evident" way that I am conscious.

You have a gut sense that makes you scoff at being a brain in a jar, but the first guy who's brain in a jar will say the same thing. This is not complicated.

The quality of your thinking would improve if you took a vow to remove phrases like "self-evident" from your vocabulary.

[Consul]

Technology marches on toward creating behaviors of the type which lead the average person to conclude that the system's subjective experience is "self-evident".

One has direct experience of one's own subjective experience. As for other subjective experience, it is merely assumed, or at best the result of intuition or some psychic sense. Hand-waving won't make that simple fact go away.

What you refer to as being "self-evident" is self-evidently "life unexamined."

You don't know in any "self-evident" way that I am conscious.

You have a gut sense that makes you scoff at being a brain in a jar, but the first guy who's brain in a jar will say the same thing. This is not complicated.

The quality of your thinking would improve if you took a vow to remove phrases like "self-evident" from your vocabulary.

Okay, the existence of subjective experience is self-evident in the sense that at least the existence of my subjective experience is (introspectively) self-evident to me. The existence of your or any other's consciousness is not (perceptually) self-evident to me, because I have no direct (perceptual) access to it—unless reductive materialism is true, in which case I do have direct access to your experiences (with the help of neurotechnology); but solipsism appears nonetheless absurd in the light of our scientific knowledge of the world and the evolution of animals and their brains in particular. And given sufficient scientific knowledge of the neural correlates (mechanisms) of consciousness, I can know through examining your CNS and drawing conclusions therefrom whether or not you are conscious. Indirect, inferential scientific knowledge of other minds/consciousnesses is surely possible (in principle).

[Chili]

The existence of your or any other's consciousness is not (perceptually) self-evident to me, because I have no direct (perceptual) access to it—unless reductive materialism is true, in which case I do have direct access to your experiences (with the help of neurotechnology);

Involves an unscientific leap of faith. Your investigation of my brain won't tell you if I even have subjective experiences - only inputs and outputs and wiring.

but solipsism appears nonetheless absurd in the light of our scientific knowledge of the world and the evolution of animals and their brains in particular.

And certainly you would be inclined to say so whether your experiences and memories come from a real world or whether they were programmed into your brain by the computer sitting just outside the jar.

And given sufficient scientific knowledge of the neural correlates (mechanisms) of consciousness, I can know through examining your CNS and drawing conclusions therefrom whether or not you are conscious. Indirect, inferential scientific knowledge of other minds/consciousnesses is surely possible (in principle).

Problem of other minds not surmounted. You are still to some level going with your gut and the reasoning process doesn't 100% involve a scientific processes.

-- Updated October 29th, 2017, 2:07 pm to add the following --

There is the problem of overdetermination: Why does a person behave as they do? One answer involves experiences and subjective processes. Another answer involves the laws of physics. If we go with the 2nd we don't need the 1st, and we don't seem to have any room for it. It's ike saying that we understand the weather reductionistically but also feel strongly that simultaneously it is the mind of Zeus at work.

[JamesOfSeattle]

There is the problem of overdetermination: Why does a person behave as they do? One answer involves experiences and subjective processes. Another answer involves the laws of physics. If we go with the 2nd we don't need the 1st, and we don't seem to have any room for it. It's ike saying that we understand the weather reductionistically but also feel strongly that simultaneously it is the mind of Zeus at work.

You could also ask why does a computer behave the way it does. One answer (the functional, or ontologically subjective) involves subjective information processing. Another answer (the physical, or epistemically objective) involves the laws of physics. But would you still say that if we choose the second we don''t need the first? I would say that's theoretically correct, but I would prefer to finish saying something useful before the heat death of the universe.

The main question with respect to p-zombies is whether the ontologically subjective is determined by the physical. Can the same physical processes occur with different ontologically subjective results. I would suggest not. If there is no physical difference, then who cares? There would be no way to tell whether you yourself were a zombie. Theoretically, a zombie doesn't have the experience even though it thinks it does. Somehow the idea that it does just pops into its head. But maybe the same thing could happen to you. The "red" experience you feel isn't a real "red" experience. It's only the idea of a "red" experience. How could you know the difference?

*

[Chili]

You could also ask why does a computer behave the way it does. One answer (the functional, or ontologically subjective) involves subjective information processing.

Most people wouldn't say this of most computers or programs.

Another answer (the physical, or epistemically objective) involves the laws of physics. But would you still say that if we choose the second we don''t need the first? I would say that's theoretically correct, but I would prefer to finish saying something useful before the heat death of the universe.

With most people being content with the 2nd, to even discuss the 1st seems odd, like discussing the subjective dimension of a thunderstorm.

Theoretically, a zombie doesn't have the experience even though it thinks it does.

I find that very confusing - does "thinks" here refer to a subjectively held belief? I thought the very idea of a zombie was that it didn't have anything like those.

[Sy Borg]

If there is no physical difference, then who cares?

There must always be physical difference, though, unless we build an entire new human - and there's been more than enough of that over the last 100 years :)

We could, as has been noted, look for equivalent dynamics to key processes of the brain in the apparent generation of consciousness.

Based on the granting of Saudi citizenship to the AI "Sophia", the powers-that-be don't even see the need to institute Turing test, let alone test whether internal processes are equivalent.

Interesting to see how eager many people are to believe that a chatbot can is capable of genuine feeling and emotion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5t6K9iwcdw. Of course, a chatbot rabbitting on about its emotions does not mean it deserves concern or citizenship any more than a PC does - or an insect for that matter, given that the latter would be hugely more complex than "Sophia" the Chatbot Citizen.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Most people wouldn't say this of most computers or programs.

I think they would if they understood that the "ontologically subjective description" is the exact same thing as the functional description. For a computer, it's essentially a description of how the program works, without reference to which computer it is running on. The program still needs the computer.

With most people being content with the 2nd, to even discuss the 1st seems odd, like discussing the subjective dimension of a thunderstorm.

What? No one is content with describing either people or computers by referencing each atom.

I find that very confusing - does "thinks" here refer to a subjectively held belief? I thought the very idea of a zombie was that it didn't have anything like those.

It is very confusing because it is paradoxical. The thought experiment says that the zombie behaves like it is thinking, but isn't' thinking. But thinking is a behavior. So the zombie is doing some behavior which is not thinking but is also not distinguishable from thinking.

*

[Consul]

Theoretically, a zombie doesn't have the experience even though it thinks it does.

I find that very confusing - does "thinks" here refer to a subjectively held belief? I thought the very idea of a zombie was that it didn't have anything like those.

See: Occurrent Versus Dispositional Belief

A zombie could at most have dispositional beliefs as a kind of nonconscious mental states, and these couldn't manifest themselves subjectively in a zombie as conscious believings or belief-experiences but only in some nonexperiential form of behavior or action.

As I already remarked, there is the basic problem as to whether it is legitimate to ascribe mental/psychological properties or states such as beliefs and desires to beings which are inherently incapable of consciousness and hence never conscious. Galen Strawson is one who answers this question in the negative:

"The basic idea here is very simple: experience is crucial. (I am expounding an intuition, not offering an argument.) A being is a mental being just in case it is an experiencing being; only a mental being can have mental properties. And when we ask which, if any, of the properties of a mental being, other than its experiential properties, are mental properties, the answer may be no more than a matter of convenient theoretical or terminological decision."

(Strawson, Galen. Mental Reality. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. p. 154)

If being a mind-haver entails being an experience-haver, then zombies are both experienceless and mindless. But a mindless being has neither beliefs nor desires, nor any other propositional attitudes (e.g. fears and hopes).

John Searle argues similarly that nonconscious, i.e. experientially unmanifested, dispositional mental states (propositional attitudes such as beliefs) must be potentially conscious/experiential states in order to be mental states at all. But the so-called mental states of zombies aren't even potentially conscious states, so they turn out to be both experienceless and mindless.

"The notion of an unconscious mental state implies accessibility to consciousness. We have no notion of the unconscious except as that which is potentially conscious."
(p. 152)

"The notion of an unconscious intentional state is the notion of a state that is a possible conscious thought or experience."
(p. 159)

"The ontology of the unconscious consists in objective features of the brain capable of causing subjective conscious thoughts."
(p. 160)

"The concept of unconscious intentionality is thus that of a latency relative to its manifestation in consciousness."
(p. 161)

(Searle, John R. The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.)

-- Updated October 29th, 2017, 6:53 pm to add the following --

"You might be tempted to think…that [zombies] are merely mindless simulacra, things which are going through the motions of being selves, but aren’t really selves. You would certainly be correct in thinking that they are not subjects of experience, since they don’t have experiences, in any shape or form. But to dismiss them as mindless would, arguably, be wrong. Zombies lack consciousness, but in other respects they are very remarkable entities. The typical table also lacks consciousness, but its behavioural repertoire is rather limited; it’s good for remaining in one place and eating dinner off, but not much else. In contrast, a zombie is capable of acting in all the ways in which a typical human being can act. In addition to being able to move around, zombies can also hold intelligent conversations, solve problems in creative and imaginative ways, tell jokes, learn new skills and languages, appreciate music and art, write novels, be loyal (or disloyal) friends, and much more. So far as their outward behaviour is concerned, they are capable of everything we are capable of (save for their complete lack of consciousness).

Rather than holding that zombies are mindless, it would be better to hold that they have a distinctive kind of mind. And these distinctively minded beings are also a distinctive kind of self. Since they do lack consciousness, no (conscious) self would regard a zombie self as being equivalent to a normal self. Zombies claim to have feelings and sensations – along with conscious thoughts and memories – but all they really have are non-conscious states in their information-processing systems that they call ‘feelings’, ‘thoughts’, ‘memories’, and so on. A zombie will say that it is in pain if it breaks a leg, but in reality it feels nothing; the same goes for zombie declarations of passion, or disgust, or outrage. Given all this, there are good reasons for regarding zombie selves – and lives – as possessing less intrinsic worth than normal conscious selves. But it is far less clear how much less worth.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that, if zombies of this sort do ever appear on the scene, then consciousness itself will suffer a down-rating in its importance. If non-conscious zombies can do everything we can do – if they are just as capable of creativity, imaginative problem-solving, affectionate friendships, acts of kindness, and so on – then it will look very much as though consciousness per se contributes little that is worthwhile or distinctive to a conscious subject’s behavioural repertoire. If so, can it really be right to value it very highly?"

(Dainton, Barry. Self (Philosophy in Transit). London: Penguin, 2014. pp. 193-4)

On the other hand, he wrote earlier:

"The distinction between the mental and the non-mental is an ontological distinction of the most profound kind. In this it is akin to the distinction between the abstract and the concrete. A system of NP-states [NP = nonphenomenal] is nothing but a complex information processing system. A complex zombie mind occupies a higher position in the ranks of information processing systems than a pocket calculator, just as the latter occupies a higher position than the humble thermostat. But the difference here is one of degree. Thermostats and zombie minds are both physical machines. All that separates a zombie mind from a thermostat or a lump of rock is mechanical complexity. The distinction between the mental and the non-mental is not of this kind. There is no fundamental ontological division between more or less complex physical machines. There is, however, a basic ontological distinction between the conscious and the non-conscious, between experiential states and properties and non-experiential states and properties. This suggests that we should make the phenomenal the mark of the mental. In which case, NP-states are not genuinely mental, and a zombie, no matter how sophisticated, is a mindless being."

(Dainton, Barry. The Phenomenal Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. p. 189)

If, as Strawson and Searle suggest too, the conscious/experiential/phenomenal is the mark of the mental, then zombies are mindless beings. Their so-called "mind" is then nothing but a physical CPU equipping them with a range of (computational and behavorial) abilities or dispositions that aren't properly called mental.

-- Updated October 29th, 2017, 7:07 pm to add the following --

By the way, I don't understand how a zombie could "appreciate music and art," because I don't understand how one can do so without ever experiencing music and art (in the form of subjective sense-impressions or imaginations of pieces of music or works of art). All a zombie could do is utter the sentence "I appreciate music and art", with this utterance being false. Saying so isn't the same as being so!

[Djacob7]

JamesOfSeattle wrote:
"Theoretically, a zombie doesn't have the experience even though it thinks it does."

That's why I firmly believe that we are zombies: We think we have experiences when all they are are neuronal coding algorithms.
"Red" doesn't exist anywhere - not even in our brains. "Red" is a neuronal code not for us to understand; we see gibberish and call it "red". "Brightness" and "darkness" also don't exist anywhere for the same reasons.
Dennett doesn't have the guts to take one side or the other in much of what he claims. A lot of his claims are followed with a "but" or a "however."
He says we're zombies "but" not really; we're "zimboes". He says "In a determinant world there are avoiders" which basically means 'In a determinant world not everything is determinant.' (My interpretation).
He says there's no such thing as consciousness (which I fully believe), "however", we have "Access consciousness."

[Chili]

JamesOfSeattle wrote:
"Theoretically, a zombie doesn't have the experience even though it thinks it does."

That's why I firmly believe that we are zombies: We think we have experiences when all they are are neuronal coding algorithms.
"Red" doesn't exist anywhere - not even in our brains. "Red" is a neuronal code not for us to understand; we see gibberish and call it "red". "Brightness" and "darkness" also don't exist anywhere for the same reasons.
Dennett doesn't have the guts to take one side or the other in much of what he claims. A lot of his claims are followed with a "but" or a "however."
He says we're zombies "but" not really; we're "zimboes". He says "In a determinant world there are avoiders" which basically means 'In a determinant world not everything is determinant.' (My interpretation).
He says there's no such thing as consciousness (which I fully believe), "however", we have "Access consciousness."

Possibly only you think you have experiences. The next guy just has behaviors but doesn't even suffer from the delusion of which you speak.

How would you know.

[Consul]

Possibly only you think you have experiences. The next guy just has behaviors but doesn't even suffer from the delusion of which you speak. How would you know.

You might find the following book interesting:

* Michael Tye: Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs: Are Animals Conscious?

[Djacob7]

Possibly.