🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct13.215811.18973@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>I'll interject here that what I claim is that _Chalmers_ is using the
>wrong notion of possibility.  I admit that his possible world with
>zombies in it is a possible world (essentially because it can be
>imagined, which is Chalmers's argument for its possibility, as far as
>I can see), but I deny that the notion of "qualia" in that possible
>world correlates with the notion of "qualia" in our own world.
>Chalmers can only construct a possible world in which our "qualia"
>correlate with his "non-physical qualia" (absent in the case of the
>zombie) and our "relevant physical states" correspond to the relevant
>physical states of the zombie when he has _already established_ that
>the referents of these two notions (the qualia and the physical
>states) are actually different in the actual world.  Imaginable worlds
>can be possible worlds considered by themselves, but the identity
>criteria relative to the actual world may not work correctly, as in
>the case of Chalmers's argument.

So.  You accept that God could have created a possible world with zombies;
i.e., a possible world in which the physical states and laws
correspond isomorphically with ours, but in which there is nothing
it is like to be those creatures.  That's enough.  I win.  It
shows that God had *more work to do* in creating our world, over and
above making sure that it satisfied those physical laws.  He
also had to make sure it was like something to be us.

All this stuff about "identity of qualia across worlds" is entirely
off the point.  I don't care whether the zombie has or lacks
the "same" qualia that we do -- I'm concerned whether it's like
anything to be that zombie, or not.  The reference is by description,
if you like, rather than by rigid designation.  That's entirely
enough to make the point.

>If his argument were valid, it would provide a general proof of the
>existence of any occult qualities you care to name: I can imagine an
>apparently living being without "vitality", so "vitality" must be
>distinguishable from the microphysical organization now mistakenly
>identified with "life".

This is quite irrelevant, as there's no reason to suppose that
we even *have* this mysterious thing, vitality.  Whereas we
certainly have qualia; there can be no doubt of that.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."