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The internal experience has bearing on physical reality right here, because without it you wouldn’t have written about it and caused these words to appear on my screen in physical reality. It affects your thinking, and hence your actions and utterances in the physical word.

For reasons like that, I don’t think that P-zombies are possible.

by IsTom7 hours ago|

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Internal experience affects movement of physical molecules in what way?

by orangecat2 hours ago|

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Having internal mental experiences causes my brain to send physical signals to my fingers in order to type the words "I have internal mental experiences". A philosophical zombie would type those same words, but they would be caused by something else since by definition it lacks those experiences. That would be rather surprising, and it would be even more surprising that the words that the zombie emits coincidentally correspond exactly to the experiences that the non-zombie has.

(See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fdEWWr8St59bXLbQr/zombies-zo... for a much longer version of this argument)

by IsTom1 hours ago|

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As the article says the alternatives (that the author seems to favor instead) boil down to "there's some physics we missed" and probably that's the point where we differ. I find that implausible, what would that be? Consciousness quantum field? Consciousness boson? If it's going to be interacting with matter it has to have a way to do that.

by layer83 hours ago|

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Internal experience is an input to your mind (that’s how you know about it), and what your mind perceives affects what it does. The better question is: how can what you experience possibly not affect your actions?

by IsTom3 hours ago|

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What you do is determined by physical action of neurons. There is no need for there to be someone to perceive it.

by layer82 hours ago|

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By definition, internal experience is something you perceive, and what you perceive informs how you act. Therefore internal experience affects outward physical action.

by jeremyjh7 hours ago|

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Qualia are the inside view of sensory data and reward signals.

Think about it from an evolutionary perspective:

Animals that step into a lava flow or forest fire don't reproduce. Eventually some evolve the ability to detect intense heat from a distance, and pain as soon as tissue destruction is imminent. They do not have nor need a general understanding of the dangers of heat, or even conscious awareness that they've stepped on a hot coal.

The pain signal compels them, but that is very low level machinery. It had to continue compelling beings that developed larger and more sophisticated brains that are capable of abstract thought and reasoning. Feeling pain is one of the lowest level parts of the brain telling the higher parts exactly what its going to do in terms that permit no disagreement.

by Joeri9 hours ago|

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Internal to what? The brain is not a monolithic thing, it is different parts communicating and interconnecting. When the connection between the halves is cut, the person objectively becomes two people, but still experiences and presents themselves as one. Observing ourselves is just one part of the brain responding to another, or theorizing on past behavior. There is probably no actual introspection going on inside of the human brain, only the perception of one.

by IsTom7 hours ago|

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Internal as in that which is feeling things. In this context the physical brain is what is responsible for what you do and feel, but it is not physically different from other matter and it requires no "internal observer" do do its thing.

by petra9 hours ago|

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There are some evolutionary theories why did qualia("phenomenal awareness") evolved. I don't know much about those, so i can't write about that.