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gobdovan

> I honestly don’t know what it even means to be conscious

> subjugate other cultures (assuming you mean they're not conscious in other's minds)

Have you ever considered you might be a philosophical zombie? [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

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I notice certain philosophers seem completely baffled by anyone being interested in the "hard problem" of conscious and things like qualia. A good example is Daniel Dennet. He seems to understand what qualia is but can't seem to understand why there's anything unique about the phenomena. I also see similar opinions expressed here in the comments. I've often wondered if a certain portion of the population are in some sort of philosophical zombie state and they equate consciousness with simple things like being awake and able to respond to stimuli.

For someone who only cares about utility of findings, I suppose there's little value in analysing the phenomenology of consciousness. I suspect that for a similar profile of thinkers meditation started being interesting when they saw there's some downstream utility in 'emotional well-being'. So why bother analysing an uncomfortable, hard problem when there's no clear benefit to it?

I just googled 'Daniel Dennet about meditation' and, surprise-surprise: 'Daniel Dennett acknowledged that meditation had practical value for "settling and centering" the mind. While he tried and saw benefits in practices like Transcendental Meditation, he largely discarded the mystical "aura" surrounding it, viewing the practice through his strictly materialist and evolutionary framework'

Its unprovable and a meaningless concept. There is no observable evidence that can distinguish so called "p zombies" or so called "real persons". Might as well call it a "unicorn in space" or anything else meaningless.

Notice how you describe a perfectly intelligible concept like 'unicorn in space' as meaningless, even though there's a clear picture you can form in your mind about it and you can imagine the exact evidence that would convince you of their existence.

We can meaningfully talk about 'unicorns in space' since it's analytically intelligible and merely syntetically unverified.

In this example the unicorn in space would be unverifiable, if it was verifiable then its an actual difference and not pertinent to the analogy. The way people define p-zombies, the literal definition states they are observationally equivalent to "normal" people. Then the question arises, what even is the point then? That means its literally equivalent. Its absurd to make up and impute random non-existent crap "inside" it.

I can live with that.

You can live without any conscious sensations? Do you never dream, never visualize, never hear your inner dialog, never experience an emotion? Being in love is as foreign to you as feeling enraged?

I'd ask what it's like, but of course you wouldn't be able to tell me.

He can live without the meaningless unfalsifiable concept of p zombies.

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