Philosophy Now Forum

What do P-zombies think about free-will?

Advocate wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:28 am What do P-zombies think about free-will?

The same thing they think about conscious experience, qualia and sentience.

That they have it.

I honestly don't think a killer whale would be of any concern to them.

Advocate wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:28 am What do P-zombies think about free-will?

P-zombies don't think anything at all. That's the entire point.

What is a P-zombie?

Advocate wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 6:28 am What do P-zombies think about free-will?

A P-zombie is a thought.

Thoughts do not think.


Descartes did not understand that thinking happens intermittently and man exists/is even when there are no thoughts. As in deep sleep man is thoughtless, he can understand that the Here and Now, even in the waking state with thoughts and without thoughts, is thoughtless, because the Here and Now does not contain time to contain a letter let alone a whole word or a thought context.

Walker wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 7:47 am What is a P-zombie?

A p-zombie, or philosophical zombie, is a thought experiment in philosophy. It considers a being, a p-zombie, that is in every respect a physical implementation of a human. It has all the organs, all the biological processes, all the correct behaviors. However, it has absolutely no subjective experience. No qualia, no subjective experiences, no thoughts, no feelings. The Wiki article I linked describes the rest of the idea in detail.

In particular, note that a p-zombie has no thoughts; so the answer to the question of "what do p-zombies think" about anything at all, is that they don't think. They have no thoughts, only behaviors.

In fact if you ask a p-zombie what it thinks about baseball, or politics, or philosophy, it will give a perfectly intelligent response. But it has no actual thoughts. In a sense it's a clever chatbot, not unlike the one that Google engineer thought was sentient.

P-zombies are not conscious so they cannot think.

P-zombies do not and cannot exist, since they cannot store learning, knowledge or experience without the conscious experience, qualia, or sentience, that the theory insists that are absent.

Without conscious experience they cannot "THINK" about free will since they cannot think without experience, and sentience.
The whole idea of a P-zombie makes no sense and so cannot operate as a hypothetical.

Finally get taken seriously and it's not a serious subject. >:(

Advocate wrote: ↑Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:07 am Finally get taken seriously and it's not a serious subject. >:(

Temptation is serious enough, in fact it's just too tempting.

p-zombie is actually the correct termninology of what a mind is.

But then...who wants to believe that?