perfectly, yet the species lacks any  subjective experience or awareness. 

This alien species moves and talks like  humans do, displaying a rich variety of  

emotional and social responses. They shake hands, laugh at jokes,  

and show genuine excitement when discussing  their latest achievements. Their world is  

filled with art, music, and literature, and  they participate in social structures that  

parallel human families and communities. Their behavior is impeccably human-like.  

However, they lack any inner world of  subjective experience or consciousness. 

These aliens are what philosophers  might call "philosophical zombies" or  

"p-zombies," entities that outwardly appear  fully sentient but internally are devoid  

of awareness or subjective feeling. Despite their advanced behaviors and  

complex interactions, they are hollow vessels,  mere automata going through the motions. 

This concept highlights a haunting question about  the nature of consciousness: how can we ever truly  

know what lies within another being, and what is  it that gives rise to our own rich inner lives? 

So let's talk about it To delve into the implications  

of p-zombies, it will be helpful to talk  about the hard problem of consciousness. 

So What is the hard problem of consciousness? 

The "hard problem of consciousness" is a  term coined by philosopher David Chalmers.  

It addresses the challenge of explaining why and  how subjective experiences, or qualia, arise from  

neural processes. This contrasts with the "easy  problems" of consciousness, which deal with  

understanding the brain's functional aspects, like  information processing and behavioral responses. 

While the term "easy problems" is used  somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Chalmers emphasizes  

that these issues are still quite challenging.  As cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker notes,  

they are "easy" only in comparison to the  hard problem. At least For the “easy problem”  

scientists know what to look for, and with  sufficient resources and intellectual effort,  

solutions might be found within this century. The hard problem, on the other hand, seeks to  

uncover why these processes are associated with  personal, internal experiences, such as the  

redness of red or the pain of a headache. While science can map brain activity and  

understand its functions, this problem questions  why these processes give rise to a conscious state  

rather than operating in darkness. It's  a philosophical issue that continues to  

puzzle researchers in neuroscience,  cognitive science, and philosophy.

This leads us to two predominant theories  in the philosophy of mind,Physicalism and  

Mind-Body Dualism : So 

What are the differences between  Physicalism and Mind-Body Dualism? 

Physicalism posits that everything is physical or  at least supervenes on the physical. Under this  

view, mental states, including consciousness,  are the result of physical interactions within  

the brain. If true, the exact replication of  a human's physical brain state should yield  

identical conscious experiences, leaving  no room for p-zombies—they simply cannot  

exist because their physical equivalence  to humans necessitates consciousness. 

Mind-Body Dualism, on the other hand, argues  that mental phenomena are non-physical and thus,  

not bound by physical laws. This perspective  allows for the possibility of p-zombies as  

it suggests that physical replication  alone might not replicate consciousness.  

The mental and physical are distinct,  and one can exist without the other. 

These theories bring us to the  concept of the philosophical zombie. 

So What is the philosophical zombie? 

The Philosophical Zombie Argument is a  thought experiment in the philosophy of mind,  

particularly in discussions about  consciousness and physicalism.

Proposed by philosopher David Chalmers,  the argument presents the concept of a  

"philosophical zombie," which is an entity  that is indistinguishable from a normal  

human being in every way except that it lacks  conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

The zombie behaves and appears  exactly like any other human;  

it can speak about its emotions, respond to pain,  

and behave as if it is conscious, but it does  not actually have any subjective experience.

The core of the zombie argument  is to challenge physicalism,  

the doctrine that everything is physical or that  the real world consists only of physical entities.

Chalmers uses this argument to suggest that  

conscious experience cannot be fully  explained by physical processes alone.

If it is conceivable that there could be  a physical duplicate of a person without  

consciousness, then consciousness  must involve something non-physical.

This leads to the conclusion that physicalism  is false, as the existence of such zombies  

would mean that physical facts do not  exhaustively account for mental facts. 

Chalmers argues that the mere logical possibility  of p-zombies suggests that physicalism is  

insufficient to explain consciousness. If we  can coherently conceive of a human devoid of  

consciousness, then consciousness and the  physical brain state cannot be identical. 

A related thought experiment, known as  Mary's Room, further supports this notion. 

So What is  

Mary's room thought experiment? The Mary's Room thought experiment,  

a thought experiment proposed by philosopher  Frank Jackson, provides an intriguing insight  

into the nature of subjective experience. In this scenario, he imagines a scientist  

named Mary who lives her entire life in a  black-and-white room. Despite her confinement,  

Mary becomes an expert on the science  of color vision and understands all the  

physical and neurological facts  about how humans perceive color.

However, she herself has never actually seen  any colors firsthand. The experiment raises the  

question: what happens when Mary finally steps  out of her monochromatic environment and sees a  

vibrant color, such as red, for the first time? According to Jackson, when Mary finally sees  

the color red, she gains new knowledge, that  is- what red truly looks like. This suggests  

that the subjective experience of seeing red  provides a distinct kind of information that  

cannot be fully captured by objective, physical  descriptions alone. The thought experiment is  

designed to demonstrate that there is an aspect of  consciousness, often referred to as "qualia," that  

goes beyond physical explanations, challenging  purely physicalist accounts of the mind.

However, some argue that the philosophical zombie  actually cannot prove physicalism is wrong. 

Here are some counter-arguments  

against philosophical zombie argument : Inconceivability: Critics like Daniel Dennett  

argue that if a being acts indistinguishably  from a conscious being, it must, by necessity,  

be conscious. Thus, p-zombies are not genuinely  conceivable—they are a contradiction in terms. 

Dennett, a prominent philosopher and  cognitive scientist, suggests that  

if a being behaves indistinguishably from a  conscious being, it must be conscious itself  

because the behavior is a manifestation of  the processes we associate with consciousness. 

This reasoning challenges the concept  of p-zombies, which as we mentioned were  

introduced by philosopher David Chalmers  as hypothetical beings who act exactly  

like conscious beings but lack inner experiences.  They would hypothetically react to stimuli, hold  

conversations, and express emotions like conscious  humans, but without any subjective experience. 

Dennett argues that p-zombies are  not genuinely conceivable because  

if a being behaves exactly like a conscious  person, they must also possess consciousness. 

According to Dennett, the concept of a p-zombie  implies that consciousness is a distinct,  

non-physical property. He rejects this, arguing  that consciousness is not separate from the  

physical processes occurring in the brain. This  view is rooted in functionalism and the idea  

that mental states can be fully explained by the  physical and functional processes of the brain. 

For example, imagine a robot programmed to act  exactly like a human: it could hold conversations,  

detect and respond to emotions, and even write  poetry. Dennett would argue that if such a robot  

perfectly replicated the behaviors and responses  of a conscious being, it would essentially possess  

consciousness by virtue of its functioning, even  if it did not have a brain made of organic matter. 

Circular Reasoning: This criticism points out  that p-zombie arguments assume a conclusion  

within their premises: they begin by assuming  that consciousness is non-physical and use  

that assumption to argue against physicalism. This fallacy becomes evident in the following  

way: proponents of p-zombies often start by  presuming that consciousness has non-physical  

properties and use that assumption to argue  against physicalist views of consciousness. 

To understand this critique, consider the standard  p-zombie thought experiment presented by David  

Chalmers. He proposes that we can conceive of  beings who look and behave like us in every way  

but lack subjective experience, or qualia. If  such beings are conceivable, Chalmers argues,  

this suggests that consciousness cannot be reduced  to physical processes alone, and thus physicalism  

(the view that everything about the mind can  be explained by physical processes) is false. 

However, critics point out that Chalmers's  argument relies on an assumption about the  

non-physical nature of consciousness  to even define a p-zombie. By defining  

a p-zombie as physically identical to a  conscious being but lacking consciousness,  

he presupposes that consciousness is something  over and above physical processes—a non-physical  

phenomenon. He then uses this presupposition  to conclude that consciousness cannot be fully  

explained by physicalism, which is the  circular reasoning critics highlight. 

For example, a critic might argue that the  mere conceptualization of a p-zombie does not  

prove that such entities are metaphysically  possible. Instead, the concept of a p-zombie  

relies on our intuitions about consciousness  being something different from brain processes,  

which physicalists might reject as incorrect.  A physicalist would instead argue that a being  

that behaves like us must necessarily have  the same mental states, as mental states  

are defined by their physical correlates. Thus, opponents of the p-zombie thought  

experiment, like Dennett, contend that  it doesn't provide a genuine challenge  

to physicalism because it begs the question.  They believe the argument against physicalism  

is embedded within the assumptions used to define  p-zombies, making it circular and unpersuasive.

Functionalism: This viewpoint suggests that  mental states are constituted solely by their  

functional role—by their causal relations  to sensory inputs, behavioral outputs,  

and other mental states. Thus, any being that  functionally behaves like a human must have  

conscious experiences identical to a human's. Essentially, this viewpoint posits that what makes  

something a mental state is its causal relations  to sensory inputs, behavioral outputs, and other  

mental states. Therefore, any entity capable of  fulfilling these roles should possess the same  

mental experiences, regardless of the specific  material composition of its brain or body. 

A classic example illustrating this concept  involves pain. According to functionalism,  

what matters about the experience of pain is  not that it's caused by a particular type of  

neural activity (e.g., C-fiber stimulation in  humans), but rather that it serves specific  

functions like producing avoidance behavior,  triggering emotional responses, and motivating  

decisions to protect the body. Thus, if an alien  species or an artificial intelligence system could  

functionally replicate this pattern of responses  and interactions, functionalism asserts that they,  

too, would be experiencing pain, even if  their neural architecture is vastly different. 

This framework challenges the idea of p-zombies  because it insists that any being that behaves  

indistinguishably from a conscious human  would necessarily have the same conscious  

experiences. According to functionalism,  consciousness isn't a mystical property  

separate from physical processes but is a result  of the functional roles these processes fulfill. 

Critics of the p-zombie argument, like Daniel  Dennett, leverage functionalism to argue  

that p-zombies are conceptually incoherent. If a  hypothetical being behaves and reacts to the world  

in the same way a conscious person does, then,  by the functionalist account, it is necessarily  

conscious. Dennett's famous "intentional stance"  further supports this by suggesting that if  

treating something as a conscious  agent reliably predicts its behavior,  

then it should be considered a conscious agent. Moreover, functionalism provides a theoretical  

basis for understanding artificial intelligence  and the consciousness of non-human entities. For  

instance, if a computer program could replicate  all the functional aspects of human cognition,  

many functionalists would argue that the  program could be considered conscious. 

Functionalism presents a compelling challenge to  p-zombie thought experiments by denying that there  

could be an entity that behaves in every way like  a conscious human but lacks consciousness itself.  

Instead, it emphasizes that mental states are  fully defined by the patterns of interactions  

and behaviors associated with them. Ok, so who is right here? The answer is,  

currently no one knows, but here are some  statistics that I hope you find helpful: 

A 2013 survey of professional philosophers by  Bourget and Chalmers found that 36% said P Zombies  

were conceivable but metaphysically impossible;  23% said they were metaphysically possible;  

16% said they were inconceivable;  and 25% responded "other". In 2020,  

the same survey yielded almost identical  results: "inconceivable" 16%, conceivable  

but impossible 37%, "metaphysically  possible" 24%, and "other" 23%.

So here you go, If you want to learn  more about the topics I shared today,  

you can check out the further reading list in  the description, and if you want to learn more  

random knowledge, please subscribe. I am Shao  from What People Also Ask, see you next time.