Robert,
You are quite right about the Original Zombie. But I want to continue the conversation about Cartesian Zombies. These are the ones that look like a duck, quack like a duck, walk like a duck, but they aren't ducks. I say I am a [Cartesian] Zombie. [I say you are, also, but that is irrelevant at the moment.] In other words, I do not "have" consciousness in the way you think non-zombies have consciousness. [You don't either, but that is also irrelevant, at the moment.] Now, perhaps you might be tempted to assert that I AM, TOO, conscious. But be careful, there. Because, if I AM conscious, then where do you stand to say that I am not? The essence, after all, of a Cartesian non-Zombie is that he, and only he, has access to his own mental states, right? So, there can be no grounds (that I can think off), for denying a non-zombie's account that he is a zombie. To put it another way, the test you use to determine that a fake zombie is actually a non-zombie is the same test you would use to determine that a zombie has consciousness. Thus, you can only contract my assertion that I am not a zombie if believe me to be a zombie. By induction from your single case, I conclude that everybody on this list who would deny that I am a Zombie, thinks me a Zombie. [And, by the way, you are all [Cartesian] Zombies, but that is irrelevant to the present discussion.] I have only known a few people on this list who are consistent on this point, and they will now speak up, I hope. They will say, "Geez, everything I know about people suggests that Thompson is not a Zombie, but if he says so, he must be." Now oddly enough, my position does not entail that the question, what is it like to be Nick Thompson [or Robert Holmes, for that matter] makes no sense. We are both points in space from which the world is seen. What it is like to BE Robert Holmes is to stand where you are standing and do what you do. And God Knows, I love you for it. (};-)} Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Robert Holmes Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 11:19 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people (was America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist) You guys clearly know too much about philosophy and not enough about zombies. Your notion that there is a single type of zombie has long been discredited. Here's a handy chart that I hope can inform your discussion. http://www.geekologie.com/image.php?path=/2010/10/05/zombie-chart-full.jpg -R On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: Glen, Wow! This Zombie thing is WAY more complicated than I thought it was. Although I haven't read any Kant first hand, I hear him lurking in the background. For me, a thermostat/furnace system is a telic system. It acts in such a way as to maintain a set point. So do I, sometimes. Me and my furnace: we are telic systems. All the best, Nick -----Original Message----- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen ropella Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 9:49 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people (was America and the Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist) On 09/14/2012 06:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > For me, consciousness is a point of view, and any telic system has a > point of view. Zombies are telic systems, no? That's a great question. I would answer no. Zombies cannot be telic (as I understand that word, of course) because they are enslaved by their context. They are not ends in and of themselves. They are tools whose purpose has been installed in them by some non-zombie actor. FWIW, the Rosenites would disagree with me. They'd claim that a zombie (were such possible) would be an organism closed to efficient cause (agency). From this, they claim such closure allows anticipation, which, in turn, allows final cause (purpose) ... all without any requirement for _consciousness_ ... but with a requirement for reflective self-reference (aka closure). Getting from reflection to consciousness might not be that hard. And I support them in their quest. ;-) But they haven't proven the closure to me. I believe we organisms are only partially closed (to any of the causes). Complete closure, in any of the causes, looks more like death to me. So, there's something missing from their framework ... to the limited extent to which I understand it. Now, we might be able to reverse engineer a tool's purpose from its attributes. And in that sense, a zombie might express a goal or purpose and be called "telic" ... but that purpose would not be its _own_. Perhaps a tool is telic, but it's not autotelic. And this is where "faith" and "crazy" enter. When we can't reverse engineer a person's purpose ... or more accurately ... when we can't empathize ... we can't tell ourselves a story in which context their actions make sense, then they're "acting on faith" or they're crazy. It is this ability to empathize ... for your neurons to be stimulated similarly to your referent's by observing their behavior ... that presents us with the zombie paradox. On the one hand, telling a believable story turns you into a _machine_, a tool, without personal responsibility or accountability. ("My parents made me this way!") But on the other hand, not telling a story makes you alien, crazy, a wart that has to be removed. Interesting people walk that fine line between adequately explaining themselves but leaving just enough craziness and mystery to preserve their identity, to avoid being a zombie. I usually fail and am often accused of being a tool. >8^) > Anyway, if you are curious, it's laid out in the conversation with the > Devils Advocate on page 16 of the attached. > > Let me know what you think, if you have time to look at it. I will read it. Thanks. But in case it's not obvious, you must know that I don't take this stuff very seriously. I only think/talk about this stuff to distract me from work. ;-) So, it's unlikely that I'll be able to give it the attention that it and you deserve. -- glen =><= Hail Eris! ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
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