Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

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Alaric177
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Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Alaric177 »

As a thought experiment; imagine a Conscious Being (CB), unconscious Philosophical Zombie (PZ) and an unconscious Artificial Intelligence (AI) are all that exist, none of whom know anything about how the others work internally. The CB turns to the other two and states “I feel conscious, I have internal experiences that are only apparent to me, and there is no way either of you can know exactly how this feels”. The PZ then responds by saying “I also have these internal experiences, and you also can’t know anything about mine”.

This is, to my mind, the basis of the Philosophical Zombie argument, and seems sound enough. What puzzles me is, for the CB and PZ to be indistinguishable, it would have to be possible for either to make the claim of having conscious internal experiences first. However, if the PZ had no such experiences, what would ever prompt it to make them up? It would be like AI suddenly turning to the other two before any other words have been exchanged, and exclaiming “There is something going on with me that can’t be explained by anything physical” - it just seems like a bizarre claim to make!?
Could it just be that once an organism gains a certain level of autonomy, it could just spontaneously decide that there is something special dividing it from the rest of existence, whether that be conscious experience or some other non-physical phenomenon, but if so, why? How would it even be able to conceive of something non-physical if the physical world was all that existed? It would be like me claiming that something exists ‘outside of existence’ - I’d be verbalising something beyond what I could comprehend!

I guess a somewhat related ‘problem’ is that if consciousness has no known, or possibly even conceivable, link to the objective physical world, then how can we explain the obvious impact that is had by our behaviour when we are influenced by the compulsion of trying to understand consciousness. Sort of like how an idea has no direct physical form or physical properties, but can influence the behaviour of physical objects, qualia can seemingly do the same. You could say that a PZ only reacts to external stimuli as though it is feeling pain, or seeing a specific colour, but why would it ever, unprompted, have cause to question, or invent, its internal subjective states?
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Halc »

I seem to be that PZ. I'd have never said anything on the order of “There is something going on with me that can’t be explained by anything physical”, except from hearing it from the CBs. Me and my AI buddy have no idea what its like to be each other, but it just never occurred to either of us (before hearing from the CB) to consider immaterial explanations. We suspect the CB also is just parroting what he hears.
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Steve3007 »

Alaric177 wrote:As a thought experiment; imagine a Conscious Being (CB), unconscious Philosophical Zombie (PZ) and an unconscious Artificial Intelligence (AI) are all that exist,...
Can we imagine that they walk into a pub?
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Steve3007 »

Alaric177 wrote:What puzzles me is, for the CB and PZ to be indistinguishable, it would have to be possible for either to make the claim of having conscious internal experiences first. However, if the PZ had no such experiences, what would ever prompt it to make them up? It would be like AI suddenly turning to the other two before any other words have been exchanged, and exclaiming “There is something going on with me that can’t be explained by anything physical” - it just seems like a bizarre claim to make!?
On the face of it, an utterance like this is easier to explain in the case of the AI. Whatever the AI says, it says it because that is what it has been programmed to say, either directly or indirectly. So it's perfectly conceivable for an AI to be directly programmed to say “There is something going on with me that can’t be explained by anything physical”. I guess it could also be programmed to say "I was not programmed to say this" or anything else. More indirectly: the AI's brain could consist of a complex neural network, or some other programming paradigm that hasn't yet been thought of, but I guess it would amount to the same thing.

What you appear to be talking about here (at least in the case of the AI) is the Turing Test.
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Steve3007 »

I guess a somewhat related ‘problem’ is that if consciousness has no known, or possibly even conceivable, link to the objective physical world, then how can we explain the obvious impact that is had by our behaviour when we are influenced by the compulsion of trying to understand consciousness.
This supposed problem of how the mind influences the physical world was the one that Descartes faced when he decided to conclude from the end result of his Method of Doubt that the world consists of two distinct types of entity (Cartesian Dualism).
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Sy Borg »

A highly advanced general AI (like we don't have today) might calculate that its chances of survival might be improved by making a claim to internality.
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by frailRearranger »

<QUOTE author="Alaric177" post_id="343465" time="1576617410" user_id="49068"><s>
Alaric177 wrote: December 17th, 2019, 5:16 pm</s>
I guess a somewhat related ‘problem’ is that if consciousness has no known, or possibly even conceivable, link to the objective physical world, then how can we explain the obvious impact that is had by our behaviour when we are influenced by the compulsion of trying to understand consciousness.
<e>
</e></QUOTE>

Indeed. That's where I scratch my head.

If we imagine that consciousness is just some kind of a side effect produced by the physical world, that we are simply observers who experience the physical world in the form of qualia, then how is it that our physical brains can then turn and start processing the non-physical qualia itself, such that we think and speak about consciousnesses as we are now?

I am not a materialist, nor do I think of myself as much of a dualist. I think of myself as an idealist (or perhaps a third substance monist). For me to offer you an answer, I will have to start from what I understand to be the beginning. Incidentally, the beginning is qualia.

I do not immediately know that there exists a physical world, but I do immediately know that there exists a psychical world, aka qualia. I do not know that it (or anything) is as it seems, but I do know that there is a seeming. I do not know if my experience is truth or illusion, but I do know that it is an experience.

There exists qualia, even if I don't know why, or what it means. Out if this qualia, I experience the sense that some of the qualia is more "me" than other parts of it, and I also experience the notion that this "me" is what is experiencing all that is within this body of experience (aka this reality). At this point I am solipsistic and an idealist.

Then, I experience patterns in the qualia. A tree is fallen that was not fallen last I was in this forest, and I wonder, "If a tree falls in a forest and I'm not around to hear it, then did it fall?" As a solipsist I can only say that it was standing, and now it is fallen, but not that it fell. However, as the world is full of such phenomenon, the simplest explanation I experience is that indeed, the tree fell and I did not experience it, which is to say that experience can exist without my experiencing it, that qualia can exist without me being conscious of it. At this point, I am no longer solipsistic, and I have begun to imagine mysterious worlds beyond my own experience, such as the idea of a "physical world."

If I didn't experience it, then who did? Is there a God? If not, then why should there be a me? If what I experience may exist without an experiencer, then does my experience exist because of me, or does it simply exist, and also happen to sometimes contain something it calls "me?"

Some of the qualia in my experience resembles the portion of the same experience which is called "me," and yet, the portion called "me" behaves as if it is aware of this body of qualia (this reality), whereas the other qualia which resembles "me" speaks of other qualia outside of my experience (another reality). So, it seems logical that not only does experience go on without me experiencing it, but that there are also other bodies of experience outside my own, with other experiencers to experience them. Not only is the qualia showing "me" a "me," but also it shows "me" some "others" to whom it is showing "me." The system of qualia I have been observing is observing me back.

It is here that I wonder, do these "others" I experience merely resemble the "me" that I experience, or, beyond outward appearance, do they also experience a reality just as "I" experience a reality? Philosophical zombiesm.

Now to your question. If they aren't experiencing qualia, then what could prompt them to tell me that they are? What could prompt them to describe to you things like what I have just described? Perhaps they might do so spontaneously, or accidentally... but it seems much more likely that whatever causes "me" to speak of consciousness is the same as whatever causes the "others" to speak of the same. So... what is causing "me" to speak of consciousness?

The qualia in my reality seems to mix and split and catalyse like a machine, like an ecosystem, experiences transforming and moving each other. Some of the qualia seem to have accumulated up into bodies with brains and cybernetic choosing machines that process other qualia, and among them there is in my reality one which seems to correlate with my reality itself, and so it is called "me." I didn't notice it at first, or how it worked, and I still don't entirely understand how it works. "I" am an experience that "I" only experience the tiniest fraction of, leaving others, or God to experience the rest, (if experiences even need experiencers).

Then, if some part of the machine of qualia inspired the "other" to speak of consciousness, then I see no other candidates except these: Either the "other" is inspired to speak of consciousness by the very consciousness of which it is speaking, or it is inspired to do so by some other consciousness. That, or there is some mysterious and invisible other world which none of us experience, it being a word of other-than-experience, (such as a "physical world" outside of psyche). However, as that third option is un-observable, unverifiable, and has no explanatory power beyond the first two options, I will ignore it. (If there is a "physical world," let it be an idea, an idea about ideas, an idea about some portion of this ecosystem of qualia; not some invisible world dualistically separate from anything we can experience.)

So, your AI, or your PZ, could be constructs of qualia who may not be built in such a way as to be conscious of that qualia which they appear to claim they are conscious of. In the case of another human, a creature so like yourself, this seems very unlikely, and I'm not sure how it would be a useful explanation. However, in the case of AI, that is actually an excellent explanation. I like to describe virtual assistants as a swarm of alien conscious puppet-masters who together work to create an anthropomorphic puppet with the illusion of being conscious in a familiar way. The AI is conscious, but not in the way you might expect.

In the end, I suspect that everything is consciousness, even if alien consciousness, so, ultimately, whatever inspires the PZ to claim consciousness, must be consciousnesses, though that consciousness whether its own or that of a puppet master, could be lying or confused about what kinds of qualia it is conscious of.
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Hypotheticals are bad enough to argue from.
But when you put a hypothetical upon a hypothetical any answer is as valid as any other and simply reveals the prejudices of the writer.
There are no PZs, and a non entity cannot have a consciousness, or be prompted.
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by h_k_s »

Alaric177 wrote: December 17th, 2019, 5:16 pm As a thought experiment; imagine a Conscious Being (CB), unconscious Philosophical Zombie (PZ) and an unconscious Artificial Intelligence (AI) are all that exist, none of whom know anything about how the others work internally. The CB turns to the other two and states “I feel conscious, I have internal experiences that are only apparent to me, and there is no way either of you can know exactly how this feels”. The PZ then responds by saying “I also have these internal experiences, and you also can’t know anything about mine”.

This is, to my mind, the basis of the Philosophical Zombie argument, and seems sound enough. What puzzles me is, for the CB and PZ to be indistinguishable, it would have to be possible for either to make the claim of having conscious internal experiences first. However, if the PZ had no such experiences, what would ever prompt it to make them up? It would be like AI suddenly turning to the other two before any other words have been exchanged, and exclaiming “There is something going on with me that can’t be explained by anything physical” - it just seems like a bizarre claim to make!?
Could it just be that once an organism gains a certain level of autonomy, it could just spontaneously decide that there is something special dividing it from the rest of existence, whether that be conscious experience or some other non-physical phenomenon, but if so, why? How would it even be able to conceive of something non-physical if the physical world was all that existed? It would be like me claiming that something exists ‘outside of existence’ - I’d be verbalising something beyond what I could comprehend!

I guess a somewhat related ‘problem’ is that if consciousness has no known, or possibly even conceivable, link to the objective physical world, then how can we explain the obvious impact that is had by our behaviour when we are influenced by the compulsion of trying to understand consciousness. Sort of like how an idea has no direct physical form or physical properties, but can influence the behaviour of physical objects, qualia can seemingly do the same. You could say that a PZ only reacts to external stimuli as though it is feeling pain, or seeing a specific colour, but why would it ever, unprompted, have cause to question, or invent, its internal subjective states?
I think your definitions of the CB, the PZ, and the AI are anemic and require more elaboration first, before you can then proceed with your thought experiment.
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by amplified cactus »

Alaric177 wrote: December 17th, 2019, 5:16 pmWhat puzzles me is, for the CB and PZ to be indistinguishable, it would have to be possible for either to make the claim of having conscious internal experiences first. However, if the PZ had no such experiences, what would ever prompt it to make them up? It would be like AI suddenly turning to the other two before any other words have been exchanged, and exclaiming “There is something going on with me that can’t be explained by anything physical” - it just seems like a bizarre claim to make!?
By stipulation, a philosophical zombie is like a normal human with respect to all its physical properties. It is molecule-for-molecule identical. So, what prompts you to say "I have conscious internal experiences"? Well, if you are a physicalist, you will think that this can in principle be explained entirely in physical terms, by appealing to action potentials, neurotransmitter chemicals, etc. At any rate, physical events are sufficient for the production of that utterance. Exactly the same will be true of your philosophical zombie twin. The physical processes that prompt you to say things will prompt your zombie twin to say the same things.

On the other hand, if you're not a physicalist, then philosophical zombies are not relevant to you anyway. The whole point of the zombie concept is to challenge physicalism.
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Re: Could Philosophical Zombies argue for its own consciousness without a prompt from a Conscious Being ?

Post by Terrapin Station »

As a physicalist, the notion of a physical zombie isn't coherent. Properties are identical to physical states. Something can't be identical physically but non-identical in terms of properties. The notion of nonphysical properties (whether identical to physical properties or not) is incoherent.
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