Philosophical zombies: a thought experiment on consciousness

This theoretical approach leads us to wonder whether human beings are nothing more than zombies.

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

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

Philosophical zombie thought 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 updating the classic discussion about the mind-body relationshipIt has even led us to imagine worlds in which it is impossible to discern who is human and who is not, as shown in science fiction or in the development of artificial intelligence.

There are those who defend that our consciousness is nothing more than a set of material elements that can be found inside the brain. In contrast, there are those who argue in favor of the existence of mental states and subjective experiences, which, although they have organic substrates, cannot be defined solely on the basis of Biological or physicalist explanations.

Both theses have been defended and refuted by different means. One of them is the mental experiments, tools used in philosophy to pose hypothetical situations that allow us to hypothetical situations that allow us to imagine the logical results of an experiment.and, based on this, to 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 mental experiment published in his book The Conscious Mindin which he suggests that if materialistic explanations about mental states were valid, then human beings would not bethen 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 has not been the only one interested in discussing the properties of human experience through its comparison with pseudo-human characters.

Why are zombies not human beings?

The philosophical zombie thought experiment runs as follows: suppose there is a world that is physically identical to our own, but instead of being populated by humans, it is populated by zombies.

Zombies are physically the same as humans, can learn the same behaviors and have the same cognitive functions as humans.. But there is a fundamental difference that argues that it is not possible to explain consciousness by the mere existence of physical components: although zombies have a physical composition identical to that of humans, they do not have conscious and subjective experiences (elements called "qualia" in philosophy), so they do not feel, nor can they develop a consciousness 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 that the proposals of materialism are inadequate.and therefore the proposals of materialism are inadequate. He 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 by physical properties alone, so that physicalist explanations of the existence of consciousness are also inadequate.

Chalmers' dual-aspect monism

The philosophical zombie experiment is an attempt to answer a question that holds in the mind-brain dilemma: can a physical system develop conscious experiences?

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

In other words, explanations based on physical or materialistic theory are not sufficient to explain the world, because the world is not only composed of physical properties but also of subjective experiences that are phenomenal properties.

In fact, the thought experiment of philosophical zombies is usually inscribed in the set of arguments in favor of dual-aspect monism, also known as property dualisma philosophical current that roughly speaking holds that consciousness is not an entity that exists apart from the physical world, but at the same time, conscious or subjective experiences (phenomenal properties) exist beyond physical properties.

Bibliographic references:

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