Keys To Reality 100 - Zombie Trouble

A philosophical zombie, or p-zombie, is a hypothetical entity identical (or at least functionally identical) to a human host from which it is modeled with one exception. The zombie lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. When your zombie sees a beautiful sunset, he would react exactly as you would react, possibly declaring that the sunset is fabulous, but your zombie experiences no sense of beauty inside.

Originally the zombie argument was proposed as an argument against physicalism, the belief that all aspects of human nature can be explained by our physical building blocks of matter and that the universe is causally closed. The proposed philosophical zombie is at the root of several famous thought experiments that reveal the arguer's position on dualism, physicalism, religious beliefs and philosophical biases.

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• Dualism
• Materialism
• Physicalism
• Chalmers
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• Napoletano
• Zombies
• Zombie
• Philosophical
• Pzombie
• P-zombie
• Keys
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[soldatheero]

@walawala147 dude why do you assume you either have to be a physicalist or a dualist? why does everyone do that? never hear of idealism?

It's almost hubris on the part of physicalists, to assume the only other option is dualism, which acknowldedges materialism to be real.

I don't acknowledge matter to be real, i recognize it is reducibile to perception.

[walawala147]

@soldatheero Hi soldatheero. My objective here is to draw beginners into the discussion.

Personally, I learn better when there is some contrast and argument. So your comment is right on target – thank you. My eyes glaze over when the mind theory is taught by chanting opinions of famous philosophers.

Tell me, is the zombie argument even a problem given your view of idealism? How would we attack the zombie argument? I plan several videos in this series setting up the fight.