Truth HQ by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T R U T H H Q

answer is ambiguous. There’s a subtle

reductionism going on – and we see it already in the examples above. If everything can be

reduced to information then the zombie ceases to be a problem. Not only that, the zombie becomes a model for how consciousness is built. Or even – how we might build consciousness! So are the zombie examples trying to tell us that – because everything can be reduced to flows of information – then zombies are actually alive? If this is the intention then surely it is misguided. If everything is just a flow of

information then are the examples not actually telling is that WE are dead?!

There is a subtle split going on as we move from direct observations (seeing red) through to emotional responses. Observation – seeing – is regarded as a kind of automatic process. ‘What you see is what you get’. A matter-of-fact kind of thing. (Even here though, humans and

animals often defy this explanation – being very selective and often deliberately distorted in the way we see the world.)

But the trouble with humans – at least for the would-be reductionist – is that we’re all about sensation, feeling, emotion, pleasure and pain. Observation, rational thought and objective truth are wall down the list of what makes a conscious creature of any kind – let alone a human.

Zombie examples – the reductionist ones – are leading us towards the question of whether computers could ever be conscious. The

question is asked as if consciousness means giving rational answers to empirical questions – an accountant’s truth! The zombie examples are given by philosophers on the basis that WE THINK WE ARE NOT ZOMBIES. But actually,

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