Subject: CSE 719: Zombies! Zombies?
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 13:52:46 -0500
From: Mike Prentice <mjp44@buffalo.edu>

A rather long, in-depth response to Chalmers that discusses AI
research, zombies, Descartes, dualism, and all the good stuff.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7/zombies_zombies/

The payoff (near the end):

The said Chalmersian theory postulates multiple unexplained complex
miracles.  This drives down its prior probability, by the conjunction
rule of probability and Occam's Razor.  It is therefore dominated by
at least two theories which postulate fewer miracles, namely:

    * Substance dualism:
          o There is a stuff of consciousness which is not yet
understood, an extraordinary super-physical stuff that visibly affects
our world; and this stuff is what makes us talk about consciousness.
    * Not-quite-faith-based reductionism:
          o That-which-we-name "consciousness" happens within physics,
in a way not yet understood, just like what happened the last three
thousand times humanity ran into something mysterious.
          o Your intuition that no material substance can possibly add
up to consciousness is incorrect.  If you actually knew exactly why
you talk about consciousness, this would give you new insights, of a
form you can't now anticipate; and afterward you would realize that
your arguments about normal physics having no room for consciousness
were flawed.

Compare to:

    * Epiphenomenal property dualism:
          o Matter has additional consciousness-properties which are
not yet understood.  These properties are epiphenomenal with respect
to ordinarily observable physics - they make no difference to the
motion of particles.
          o Separately, there exists a not-yet-understood reason
within normal physics why philosophers talk about consciousness and
invent theories of dual properties.
          o Miraculously, when philosophers talk about consciousness,
the bridging laws of our world are exactly right to make this talk
about consciousness correct, even though it arises from a malfunction
(drawing of logically unwarranted conclusions) in the causally closed
cognitive system that types philosophy papers.
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Subject: Fwd: CSE 719: Zombies! Zombies?]
Date: Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:40:03 -0600
From: kba@inebraska.com

That was fun--and essentially the same as my argument against
McDermott's humans are robots argument! Thanks!

Kenton Bruce Anderson
Adjunct Instructor, Buffalo State College, SUNY
PhD Student, University of Buffalo
Designer, KBA Studios, LTD
kba2@buffalo.edu
kba@inebraska.com
917-557-6182
Weblog: http://www.kba2.wordpress.com/

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