The philosophical zombie of dualism

This article may be a bit longer, but there is a topic that needs to finally die. And that is the concept of a philosophical zombie.

A philosophical zombie, also known as a p-zombie, is a thought experiment in philosophy and psychology that seeks to explore the concept of consciousness. A p-zombie is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being in every way except that it lacks consciousness, qualia, or subjective experience.

Not only are the p-zombies false, but the concept showed fundamental holes in the philosophy of dualism and as I was writing this article, I realized that dualism itself is a zombie we can finally put to the ground.

Let me start with dissecting the zombie. I will assume that you have already some knowledge about that, if not, you can quickly check the links provided.

First of all, all arguments from conceivability are nonsense by default. Suggesting that something is conceivable doesn’t prove anything at all. I can easily conceive of a plane flying backward. I can see it in my mind’s eye in all its glory. Yet, it is impossible for planes to fly backward.

Additionally, the argument from conceivability provides exactly zero evidence or reasoning to support itself. It is literally “I can imagine it, so now you must take it seriously” to which the only possible answer is “no”. Conceivable doesn’t at all imply “real” or indeed even “possible”.

This by itself should be enough to let the zombie finally rest. But we can go even further.

In his Discourse on Metaphysics, there is also a scientific principle of “The Identity of Indiscernibles” by Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz. If two objects or entities are identical in all respects, they are by necessity the same object. In other words, if there is no way to tell two things apart, then they must assume to be the same thing.

This principle is basic logic and mathematics, not just metaphysics. And since you can’t distinguish the p–zombie from a normal human in any way, we must assume that it is a normal human or that we are all p-zombies. You can make your pick.

The argument for p-zombie is also fundamentally flawed because it already presumes that there is something magical about human consciousness and abuses this little flaw in human reasoning that makes us think about human minds/souls as being special.

Let me illustrate.

Imagine instead of a philosophical zombie there is a philosophical bank*. You can do anything you could do in a normal bank – open an account, borrow some money or get a mortgage. You can come in and out, clerks are smiling, and there is an ATM and a safe. There is no way to distinguish it from a normal bank. It is just missing something magical that would make it a real bank.

I bet you will have no problem seeing that in this case, it is, in fact, just a normal bank, and the addition of “philosophical” is a distinction without a difference.

The p-zombie does exactly the same thing – it already presumes dualism. It already tells you that there is something special, non-physical, and magical about human experience that can’t be discerned by any means available.

By accepting the conceivability of p-zombie, you also accept the premise of dualism to be true. The p-zombie itself assumes it.

Consciousness and qualia are intricately tied to the function of the brain and neurons and are indeed inseparable from what it means to be a human. You can’t have a healthy functioning brain without consciousness. It is not something that can be mysteriously added or removed from what makes us human in the first place.

If a being lacks consciousness, it would also lack the neural processes that give rise to consciousness, and would therefore be unable to behave or function in the same way as a conscious being. Therefore p-zombies are impossible. They would just be zombies.

Now that we have established, beyond any doubt I hope, that p-zombies are nonsense, we can just move it up a level and apply the same reasoning to dualism as a whole.

Dualism is a philosophical concept that suggests that reality is made up of two fundamentally different substances or domains. These two domains are often referred to as mind and matter and are thought to be ontologically distinct and separate from each other.

As we have shown with the p-zombie, matter and mind are actually quite connected, so much so it is not really conceivable for them to be separate. As with the case of the p-bank, assuming this separation is a distinction without a difference.

The issue is what I call “the problem of interface” – if they are so ontologically separate, how could they even interact? And if they interact, how are they separate? If there is an interface between them, it has to be necessarily at least in part physical and therefore accessible to scientific exploration. Which is not what we observe.

It is difficult to account for the unity of consciousness and indeed the interlinked relationship of consciousness and brain within a dualistic framework. According to dualism, the mind and the body are separate and distinct substances, but our experience of consciousness is of a single, unified mind. It is not clear how a dualistic model could explain this unity of consciousness, or why the mind and the body would be experienced as a single, unified entity.

It also can’t explain how changes in the brain can affect the causally disjointed mind. And it can never do so even in principle. The only thing that is going on here for both dualism and p-zombies is “it’s magic, you just don’t understand”.

Maybe it is time to stop this voodoo nonsense and let the dead philosophies finally rest.

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*I think this is inspired by Daniel Dennet, but for the love of the world, I can’t find where I got this.