Philosophical Zombies: A Thought Experiment on Consciousness

Philosophical Zombies are a thought experiment conducted by Australian philosopher David Chalmers to question materialistic explanations about the functioning and complexity of consciousness.

Through this experiment, Chalmers argues that it is not possible to understand consciousness by means of the physical properties of the brain, which can be argued if we imagine a world just like ours, but inhabited by zombies.

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Philosophical Zombies Mind Experiment: Some Background

Describing and locating the components of consciousness is a topic that has generated not only scientific and philosophical debates that are constantly updated the classic discussion about the mind-body relationship, but has even led us to imagine worlds in which it is impossible to discern between who is human and who is not, as science fiction or the development of intelligence shows us artificial.

There are those who defend that our consciousness is nothing more than a set of material elements that can be found within the brain. In contrast, there are those who argue in favor of the existence of mental states and subjective experiences, that Although they have organic substrates, it is not possible to define solely based on biological explanations or physicalists.

Both theses have been defended and refuted by different means. One of them is thought experiments, tools used in philosophy to pose hypothetical situations that allow you to imagine the logical results of an experiment, and based on this, draw conclusions and argue theoretical positions.

In the 90's and with the intention of questioning the materialistic explanations about the functioning of the human mind, David Chalmers conducted a thought experiment published in his book The conscious mind, in which he suggests that if materialistic explanations of mental states were valid, then human beings would be nothing more than a bunch of zombies.

With his thesis, the idea of ​​philosophical zombies became popular in an important sector of philosophy, however, David Chalmers he has not been the only one interested in discussing the properties of the human experience by comparing them with characters pseudohumans.

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Why aren't zombies human?

The philosophical zombie thought experiment proceeds as follows: Suppose there is a world that is physically identical to ours, but instead of being populated by humans, it is populated by zombies.

Zombies are beings physically equal to humans, can learn the same behaviors and have the same cognitive functions. But there is a difference that is fundamental and that defends that it is not possible to explain consciousness by the mere existence of components Physical: Although zombies have a physical makeup identical to that of humans, they do not have conscious and subjective experiences (elements called "qualia" within philosophy), with which, they do not feel, nor can they develop an awareness of "being" (a zombie). For example, zombies can scream like people, but they do not have the subjective experience of pain.

From this experiment, Chalmers concludes that consciousness cannot be explained in terms of biological determinism., so the proposals of materialism are inadequate. It concludes that zombies are conceivable insofar as it is possible to imagine them, and if they are conceivable it is because their conditions of existence are not determined only by physical properties, with which, physicalist explanations of the existence of consciousness are also inadequate.

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Chalmers' dual-aspect monism

The Philosophical Zombie Experiment is an attempt to answer a question that is held in the mind-brain dilemma: Can a physical system develop conscious experiences?

What this experiment implies is that consciousness is not identical to a physical fact, and vice versa, a physical fact is not fully explains consciousness, because it cannot fully explain the presence of qualitative experiences and subjective.

That is, the explanations that start from physical or materialist theory are not enough to explain the world, because the world is not composed only of physical properties but of subjective experiences that are properties phenomenal.

In fact, the thought experiment of philosophical zombies is often inscribed in the set of arguments in favor of double-sided monism, also known as property dualism, a philosophical current that very broadly maintains that consciousness is not an entity that exists apart from the physical world, but at the same time, the conscious or subjective experiences (the phenomenal properties) exist beyond the properties physical.

Bibliographic references:

• Chiarella, H. (2015). Limits and possibilities of a science of consciousness. Synthesis. Articles based on dissertations, 6: 63-81.
• Bocci, L. (2005). How to stop being a zombie: a strategy to maintain materialism in spite of Chalmers. Journal of Philosophy and Political Theory, Annex 2005: 1-11.
• Gojlik, B., Oukacha, B., Dumitrache, C. & Sánchez, P. (S / A). David Chalmers. Retrieved April 23, 2018. Available in https://www.ugr.es/~setchift/docs/cualia/david_chalmers.pdf