Assertion: zombie | /r/HasProperty | conceivable
Facets:
value: in some sense
type: OTHER
Source sentences:
text: Zombies might not actually be conceivable or, if they are, just because they are conceivable, that might not mean that they are possible.
text: Chalmers has argued that zombies are conceivable, saying "it certainly seems that a coherent situation is described; I can discern no contradiction in the description.
text: Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition".
text: Many think that if the physical facts entail consciousness by metaphysical necessity, then physicalists can maintain that even though zombies are metaphysically impossible, they are still conceivable (Balog 2012; Loar 1990/97; McLaughlin 2005; Sections 5.1, 5.2 below).
text: Zombies are conceivable.
text: Many philosophers are willing to concede that zombies are conceivable in some sense
text: Are zombies conceivable?
text: Clearly, those who maintain that zombies are conceivable must provide justification, recognizing that, being an epistemic claim dependent on our cognitive abilities, it is defeasible.
text: Although in the past it was quite widely accepted that zombies are conceivable, skepticism has been growing.
text: Just now it seemed that if zombies are conceivable, then epiphenomenalist and parallelist worlds are also conceivable.
text: Exponents of the conceivability argument hold that the supposed ‘explanatory gap’ between the physical and the phenomenal — which is expressed in the idea that zombies are conceivable — brings with it an ontological gap.
text: Roughly, the idea is that if there actually are certain nonphysical properties which fit our conception of qualia, then that is what qualia are, in which case zombies are conceivable; but if there are no such nonphysical properties, then qualia are whichever physical properties perform the appropriate functions, and zombies are not conceivable.
text: It is argued that this approach enables physicalists to accept that the possibility of zombies is conceivable, while denying that zombies are conceivable (Hawthorne 2002a; Braddon-Mitchell 2003.
text: As we saw, the simplest version of this argument goes: (1) zombies are conceivable; (2) whatever is conceivable is possible; (3) therefore zombies are possible.
text: So we have a parallel argument: (1*) anti-zombies are conceivable; (2) whatever is conceivable is possible; (3*) therefore anti-zombies are possible.
text: (Brown 2010 argues that if anti-zombies are conceivable, then zombies are inconceivable.)
text: The most promising reply for exponents of the conceivability argument seems to be to deny that anti-zombies are conceivable (Chalmers 2010, 180).