Really? A denier?

The planet is on the path to have catastrophic climate change. So severe it's possible most species on the planet will go extinct if this happens.

The good news is that it's not going to happen in your lifetime. You'll be fine.

Per capita I believe it's the USA.

If there is no free will then you have no more free will about your reactions to an act than the actor does in the action.

This is what people seem to miss in this conversation. Somebody does something because they have no choice. You will react the way you do because you have no choice. The "you" could be the police, judge, jury, media, bystander etc.

Everybody acts exactly as the laws of the universe dictate.

Can't you say the exact same thing about the brain of every species? they are all unique enough to differentiate from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Older people are addicted to the television and younger people are to their phones.

It will only feed the planet if they make it available without patents or other intellectual property restrictions. Otherwise it will be just another variety poor people can’t afford.

How do you dismiss the effectiveness of fecal transplants?

>I suppose that's fair enough, but personally I'd say there's a tacit assumption in any thought experiment that causality is 'reset' and the hypothetical world plays out according to whatever has been changed in the thought experiment to begin with. In which case these p-zombies wouldn't believe they have qualia.

But that makes no sense. That premise begs the question and can't possibly lead to any kind of rational conclusion.

>What magical machine is this that records my qualia?

There are several variety of brain scanning devices. Surely you know this.

> You can measure my brain activity all you want but that's not the same thing.

Why not? They are exactly the same thing. You can even watch it and say to yourself "so that's what me experiencing the redness of red looks like".

> Neural correlates of consciousness are not consciousness.

That seems like an outrageous claim and will need to be backed up by some evidence.

>The insanity here is the inability to understand what I'm talking about when I refer to the most fundamental aspect of human existence.

I suspect this is because you yourself don't really know and can't put it into precise terms. You are holding on to a vague notion so it's no possible for you to explain it to anybody with clarity.

> My only options are to believe that physicalism has resulted in some sort of collective self-denying delusion (a la Daniel Dennett) or that philosophical zombies actually exist, are among us, and are debating philosophy of mind with us. I can't tell which one I prefer.

I think if you tried hard enough you'd be able to come up other options.

>Because I'm sure you would've told me by now if you were lmao

What makes you so sure of that?

>Because a zombie has no qualia and I know I do have qualia because I'm currently and constantly directly experiencing qualia.

The zombie believes he has qualia.

>According to whom?

According to the premise of the experiment.

>? That's not part of the thought experiment and I see no logical reason to assume that.

The logical reason is that there is another universe exactly like this one which means the zombies are exactly like humans but lack qualia. This means they believe they have qualia and say that they have qualia when you ask them.

>Then I'm afraid I must conclude you yourself are a p-zombie :)

Go right ahead. I am sure it fits in your worldview already.

>Neural correlates of consciousness are physical and can be measured but consciousness (qualia) itself is not and cannot.

Of course it can. We can literally record you experiencing the redness of red.

>But this is a whole argument by itself. I'd recommend reading Chalmer's The Conscious Mind for a better understanding.

I have. He makes no sense. Like you he keeps making insane and completely unsubstantiated claims like "qualia can't be detected" when we can clearly detect you experiencing qualia.

>The article in the post we're arguing in the comments section of should answer this question.

It doesn't. An answer isn't just something somebody says. There has to be some sort of evidence.

>What these things do is convert that information into a form we can access.

Exactly.

>But we can never experience the quale of bat echolocation, or bird magnetoreception, or shark electroreception, et cetera.

why are you so sure of that. According to you qualia is unmeasurable, undetectable, completely subjective, and is not material. Given all of that how can you be sure I am not experiencing the qualia of echolocation?

>'Philosophy' has never been properly defined either, but here we are.

Arguing about the definition of words nobody can agree with. That's philosophy in a nutshell.

>Someone who isn't a zombie would know they themselves aren't a zombie though.

How?

>Someone who possesses qualia would be able to recognize that fact.

The zombie thinks they have qualia.

> The point of the thought experiment is for those qualia-having people to imagine the existence of physically-functional humans who have no qualia and to consider the philosophical/metaphysical/epistemological implications. It makes perfect sense to me.

Honestly it makes no sense to me.

>It would be almost entirely physically identical. Qualia are non-physical by definition.

But they are physical. Your perceptions are physical. Your feelings about your perceptions are also physical.

> I know that if I were a p-zombie I'd probably talk about qualia a lot less!

No you wouldn't. You'd talk about it just as much because you would think you have qualia.

> subjective color experience itself is a quale, and that's what the whole example is about.

But it's physical. Your subjective experience can be measured in a machine by examining your brain activity.

>The argument doesn't work for everything that can be conceived of, only fundamental ontological properties.

Why? Why is this definition of creation only limited to fundamental ontological properties (whatever that means).

>If humans were all blind we wouldn't discuss sight experience, but most of us can see and thus we can discuss sight experience.

Yes because photons are hitting our physical eyes and creating physical electrical signals which travel on physical nerves and get processed in your physical brain.

>On the other hand, we know bats echolocate and we know the physics and the biology behind it, but most of us can't personally echolocate - and thus we don't talk about the quale of echolocation.

Some people do. Come to think of it it's no different than talking about qualia of hearing.

>We don't even know what it's like, so how would we talk about it?

We can guess. We can theorize. We can simulate. We can mathematically model. We can build machines to mimic it. That's what humans do to understand things beyond our perception.

>Every definition I've seen of qualia strikes at a very particular feature of human existence - subjective conscious experience. It's always seemed like a pretty straightforward concept to me.

No you forgot to add "non physical" or "non material" or "supernatural" into that definition. Subjective experience is physical and there is no need for a special word to talk about it.

> These kinds of metaphysical debates usually don't result in any form of mutual understanding lol. But figured I'd try anyway.

Do you know why? It's because nobody can define the word metaphysical consistently.

The point is the neither the observer or the zombie itself can know whether or not they are a zombie. So this makes the whole thought experiment moot.

You can't tell, the zombie can't tell.

It's just the problem with solipsism restated.

>Chalmers argues that we can conceive being outside of a world physically indistinguishable from our world but in which there is no consciousness (a zombie world). From this (so Chalmers argues) it follows that such a world is metaphysically possible.

Can we though? This is the whole problem You can't conceive of such a world because that world would be exactly like this one.

>For idealists: look at a color wheel and memorize all the colors. Imagine that the spectrum of visible light we can see is expanded by 50 nm in one direction. That new light we'll be able to detect will have colors that are not a part of the current color wheel, but are an addition to it. What do those new colors look like? I personally can't envision any colors existing that aren't ROYGBIV or pink. Perhaps such a color is metaphysically impossible?

Do you see how you are begging the question. Your question is saying there is a physical eye seeing physical wavelengths of photons and a brain is undergoing physical processes. So if you are perceiving anything it's due to physicalism. There is nothing metaphysical about perceiving colors.

>The other side of this is that, to put it very crudely, if we are able to comprehend and discuss an ontological property then it can reasonably be said to exist, even if its relation to other properties is uncertain.

Again I pointed out that you can't conceive of it but let's presume you can. This argument boils down to "anything anybody can conceive of is real and exists using the words real and exist in the ways we are familiar with".

Surely you can see the flaw in this premise.

>I'd say that if I asked a p-zombie if they experience qualia they'd say "what's that?"

Most likely this is true because the word itself carries no defined meaning and was created purposefully to be vague and malleable so as to prove a point".

>They would not be able to understand my explanation because they don't have the metaphysical capacity to understand the ontological properties that I experience and talk about.

But they would. The experiment says they could talk about it.

>I hope at least some of this made sense.

I understand what you are saying, your arguments don't make sense to me and I don't accept your premises or conclusions.

>This includes various mechanical and computational devices.

It also includes rocks. It also includes electrons and neutrons and photons which never experience state change.

I would say it's a crazy theory but honestly it's so far away from being able to called a theory we need to make up a new word to describe it.

>Handwaving with a word like processing is meaningless.

Is it though? How is it worse than handwaving with a word like consciousness or experience or qualia?

>I personally am looking to engineer not just AI but synthetic minds.

Good luck with that. Let me know when you know what a mind is and how you would recognize one.

>It's silly because it assumes subjective experience as some sort of magic that happens regardless of the design.

It's not magic at all. It's just chemical reactions.

>How something is built and what sort of input it receives, how it's processed is of course relevant to the discussion

No it's not. The mere fact that processing happens is the only thing that matters.

>Making random claims that anything that receives input has subj. experience is silly.

Why is it silly?

>n the case of simple calculators that did not evoove to think and feel like us, we don't.

I said nothing about thinking or evolving. I am merely talking about experience.

>Our brain is an analog piece wetware.

Irrelevant to the discussion.

> Does she lack something?

Does she lack everything?

>OP would say she lacks the experience of red, what would you say?

I don't dispute this. The question is can she detect or understand the experience of red in any way.

as I said before a deaf person can understand that another person can hear and can detect when another person hears.

>And your calculator also takes input. It doesn't automatically have experience.

Are you sure? Why do you think it doesn't? Clearly it reacts to input. Your brain also reacts to input.

>Okay, wow. Bold claim. Evolution seemed to work hsrd to develop a CNS and such if all "input" is subjective experience.

CNS can't work without input. It requires a steady stream of oxygenated blood and hydrocarbons all of which require input.

>It doesn't prove anything and again hss no bearing on my point.

You can't be serious. We can cause specific experiences by providing specific input.

>Ari's point is that past a certain point of endogamy, the Ashkenazi are genetically distinct enough that they sort of share enough features that they kinda constitute their own race.

Kinda? Sounds like he wants to stretch the definition to make the ashkenazi feel special.

>Well, to quote his words, specifically responding to the question of "how can it be a race," he says "cause you can pick a Jew out of a lineup."

Can you though? really?

>Mentioning elechtrochemical activity and the God helmet has nothint to do with the point.

It has everything to do with the point. It proves that experience is the result of electrochemical activity in the brain and causing electrochemical activity in the brain causes experience.

>It's is of course arcbitecturally completely different than my brain.....

It's really not that different though.

>From "input isn ot experience" it doesn't follow that there can't be any experience without input.

Sure it does. Experience is the result of electrochemical activity in the brain. That doesn't happen without input.

>I am simply saying not all forms of input result in subjective experience.

And I am saying they do.

>People born deaf have some compensatory mechanisms like better detection of vibrations... but you're stretching at this point.

They have input into their brains. They can understand input they don't have using input they do have.

>Input is not experience.

Of course it is. There can be no experience without input.

>I can build a simple raspberry Pi robot with accentuators and its simple processing doesn't mean it necessarily has subjective experience unless you subscrive to some form of panpsychism.

It has input and that input is in fact experience for the processor. It detects the electricity which then results in other electrochemical reactions.

This is no different than your brain.

>Chalmers's arguments are systematic and explorative

I disagree. They are contrived and designed carefully to try and provide some sort of a backing for his already held conclusions.

>And if it's not apparent to you, then make an argument how subjective experience can be inferred without having it.

I have multiple times.

Your experiences are merely electrochemical activity taking place in your body. They can be measured and then mechanically stimulated to make you feel things.

>That would be beyond Nobel-level stuff.

It's banal and has been done thousands of times. You can literally make people believe in god and then disbelieve by stimulating their brains.