You are not a mathematician, are you?
…
Just because we used a different way to put it, the two sides are exactly the same.
The unclearness may have come from the fact that you used the equality of two mathematically identical objects to make a point about two numerically distinct physical objects that do not share all of each other’s features.
If you have two human-looking entities in front of you, and one is a “real” human, while the other one is a “zombie”, what kind of experiment are you going to perform to find out, which one is which? Since the definition of the “zombie” stipulates that it cannot be told apart from the “real” human, there can be no such experiment. Therefore the rational conclusion is that it does not matter. In a sense it is precisely like the assumption of a “soul”.
I think you are missing the point of the thought experiment. I am a human; I have intentional and qualitative thoughts. The argument is that there could be a zombie with physical states identical to mine without intentional and qualitative thoughts. Obviously they cannot be told apart - that’s the point. The point is that
if there were a mental difference, the physical facts wouldn’t tell you about it. But we know from our own experience that we have intentional and qualitative states, and the inability of any theory to deal with them is a nail in that theory’s coffin.
How does that alleged difference “manifest” itself? Let’s put it this way: “if something cannot be detected, either directly or indirectly, now or ever, because it is inaccessible to us, then whether it exists or not is irrelevant”. As such it firmly belongs to the realm of useless speculation – which is either fiction or philosophy.
What do you mean how does it manifest itself? Do you have intentional and qualitative states? You might not be able to detect them in other humans, but that leaves you with the option of a). accepting that functionalism does not account for intentional and qualitative states or b). becoming an eliminativist about intentional and qualitative states. I don’t “speculate” about my intentional and qualitative states.
You seem to be reifying the problem of other minds. But so long as other humans are of the same kind that I am, it seems reasonable to suppose that they have minds. But since other considerations inform me that the physical facts alone can’t account for their minds, I am unjustified in thinking that a purely physical object that I create - an android, say - likewise has a mind. (Unless I decide to define “mind” in a very weak, insubstantial way - with respect to functional outputs.)
Can you “prove” that there is no “equivalent” of them?
You are going to say that I should believe that Searle’s Chinese room is having qualitative experiences - akin to my experience of red - unless I can prove that they are not there? The point is that it’s absurd to hold that the functional equivalence of the room to a native Chinese speaker implies that it “thinks” like the Chinese thinker does - unless you weaken the notion of “thinking” to the point of triviality.
You gotta be kidding. Now we can tell the difference?? If there is no difference between a con man and an honest salesman, then on what grounds do you call one of them a “con man”? He does not look like a con man, does not ACT like a con man… so he is NOT a con man.
From which part of “whether or not we can tell the difference” did you get “now we can tell the difference”? You might not be able to tell the difference on functionalism or some sort of dualism, or any other theory of mind. That’s just an epistemological point. Our inability to tell the difference is irrelevant. The point is that If functionalism is right, then our inability to tell the difference between an honest man and a conman
means that their minds are equivalent, which is absurd.
Rather, suppose that
you’re a very good actor who is emulating someone else. You manage to act indistinguishably from them, but since your aim
is to emulate them, you know yourself that your mind is not identical to theirs. You might carry this emulation on until the end of both of your lives. So there was absolute functional equivalence to any external observer. But
you, the actor, know that there was not equivalence of mind, so the standard of functional equivalence is simply insufficient.
We deal here with the perfect copy “problem” (which is not a problem at all). Take any object and run it through the perfect copy machine. The machine gathers the necessary atoms and places them into the exact same configuration as the “original” one. As soon as the process is completed,** there is no way to tell which one was the original and which one is the copy**. None at all. Not even in theory. Therefore to speak of “original” and “copy” is a meaningless utterance.
There is a way to tell which was the original. Say you copy X by creating Y. Then at the moment of creation, X and Y are not in the same location. So if you keep track of X, then you are keeping track of the original. If you keep track of Y, then you are keeping track of the copy. Maybe you lose track and they get switched around when you look away. Again, that’s just an epistemological point which has nothing to say of whether the two are identical, anymore than confusing two identical twins should make us doubt whether they are ontologically distinct. (This would be granting that such a thought experiment is not vacuous - which is doubtful.)
I wonder why many others disagree.
