On 19 January 2015 at 20:42, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: On 1/19/2015 9:31 AM, David Nyman wrote: > > On 19 January 2015 at 14:01, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote: > > But if zombies were *logically* impossible, as I believe Dennett for >> example claims, then it would be analytically true, not a contingent fact. > > > I'd like to amplify here a little in light of my longer response to you > about comp and the Hard Problem. Dennett's public and oft-repeated position > is that physics has primacy over (for example) computation or logic. In > other words, he believes that before something can be deemed computational > or logical, it must first be physical. My point is that, given this prior > commitment, he actually has no basis for any claim that zombies are > *logically* impossible unless they are first *physically* impossible. > > > ?? Everything that exists must be physically possible is compatible with > everything that exists must also be logically possible and most people > think that nomologically possible is a subset of logically possible. So > logically impossible implies physically impossible. I think you're > confused about Dennett. >
I don't think you've taken my point. According to Dennett, at least as I've always read him, everything that 'exists' must do so physically. This position (which is an intrinsic part of what he calls his 'third-person absolutism') has led him to his attempted wholesale substitution of 'judgements' about consciousness (which can be cashed out physically) for the supposed 'illusion' of consciousness. On this basis, nothing that is physically impossible could exist (obviously). Hence, to show that zombies could not possibly exist Dennett would have to convince us a priori that they couldn't possibly exist *physically* - i.e. that they violate some essential principle of physical explanation. My point is that this can't be done. There's nothing about physical explanation that requires a conscious point of view and consequently it doesn't harm a zombie's purely 'physical' status to deny that it has one. > > However, the fact is (as notoriously argued by Chalmers, for example) > that we have precisely zero evidence that zombies are physically > impossible. In point of fact they would appear to be physically > *inevitable*, given that the system of physical relation appears (very > convincingly) to be both causally sufficient and causally closed. > > > Being causally closed would be an argument against libertarian free-will, > but I don't see why it's an argument against consciousness. > It's an argument against consciousness, as construed as something other than its physical correlates, because nothing attributable to physical explanation would ever lead us to believe a priori in the necessity of a conscious point of view to what we are describing. That is the relevance of the causal closure of the physical in this context. Zombies would appear a priori to be the more obvious progeny of such a system. Consequently we accept the fact of consciousness (if indeed we do) as a brute a posteriori datum. David > Brent > > The conjunction of this inconvenient fact with a prior commitment to > physical naturalism often seems to result in a kind of cognitive > dissonance. In Dennett's case this leads to a denial that consciousness can > be distinguished from our 'judgements' about it (i.e. it is an 'illusion') > which is superficially at least consistent, though ultimately > self-defeating. Smolin's unwillingness to deny consciousness, by contrast, > pushes him into frank inconsistency. > > We need something better than either of these positions. > > David > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
