The Authentic Eclectic
The Impossibly Hard Problem of Consciousness
The philosophical zombie apocalypse
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In 1994 the philosopher David Chalmers raised questions about consciousness which ignited a zombie apocalypse.
These weren’t questions no one had asked before. These were questions that rattled the established orthodoxy. They challenged the complacent modern assumption that science had settled all such questions.
Many people assume it’s no longer an open question whether there is a soul separate from the body which could survive death. The modern mythology says science exorcised that ghost from the machine long ago. It’s assumed everything worth explaining would eventually be explained by science.
Then Chalmers released the philosophical zombies, and the war began.
What is a philosophical zombie?
Rather than the blood-stained reanimated corpse of horror films, a philosophical zombie is less frightening. It’s an explanatory nightmare.
Imagine you meet your doppelganger. Someone physically identical to you, atom for atom. The only difference is the doppelganger has no inner…
