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Tag: phenomenology

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Jun 10, 2025
acx
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11 min 1,705 words 891 comments 191 likes podcast (10 min)
Scott argues that philosophical zombies (beings without consciousness) would still report having qualia and conscious experiences, challenging a key argument in the p-zombie debate. Longer summary
Scott Alexander challenges a core argument in the philosophical zombie debate by suggesting that p-zombies (beings without consciousness) would still report having qualia and conscious experiences, just like humans do. He walks through how p-zombies would process and describe visual information, showing that they would need to use language similar to how we describe conscious experience. The post explores the implications of this for various philosophical positions on consciousness, though it acknowledges remaining difficulties in explaining subjective experience. Shorter summary