Zombies, Epiphenomenalism, and Physicalist Theories of Consciousness
Andrew Bailey
Canadian Journal of Philosophy December 1, 2006 DOI: 10.1353/cjp.2007.0000 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that zombies are not the enemy of materialism but its friend, and that they militate against computational models of consciousness in favor of biologically rooted conceptions, supporting a more reductive physicalism. |
Abstract
In its recent history, the philosophy of mind has come to resemble an entry into the genre of Hammer horror or pulpy science fiction. These days it is unusual to encounter a major philosophical work on the mind that is not populated with bats, homunculi, swamp-creatures, cruelly imprisoned genius scientists, aliens, cyborgs, other-worldly twins, self-aware Computer programs, Frankenstein-monster-like ‘Blockheads,’ or zombies. The purpose of this paper is to review the role in the philosophy of mind of one of these fantastic thought-experiments — the zombie — and to reassess the implications of zombie arguments, which I will suggest have been widely misinterpreted. I shall argue that zombies, far from being the enemy of materialism, are its friend; and furthermore that zombies militate against the computational model of consciousness and in favour of more biologically-rooted conceptions, and hence that zombie- considerations support a morereductivekind of physicalism about consciousness than has been in vogue in recent years.