I’m Sick of Philosophical Zombies!

In the last twenty years (or even longer), philosophical zombies have been very popular in philosophy. The exotic and sexy appeal of “p-zombies” has even spread to those people who don’t usually care about philosophy or (particularly) consciousness. So has far too much time been spent on entities which are, after all, only meant to be (even by their adherents) logical possibilities?

So what is a philosophical zombie? This is one account:

“A philosophical zombie or p-zombie is a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. [] Proponents of philosophical zombie arguments, such as the philosopher David Chalmers argue that since a philosophical zombie is by definition physically identical to a conscious person, even its logical possibility would refute physicalism, because it would establish the existence of conscious experience as a further fact.”