• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Ep. 222: Debating Functionalism (Block, Chalmers) (Part One)

July 29, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/partiallyexaminedlife/PEL_ep_222pt1_7-1-19.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:39 — 49.2MB)

On Ned Block's “Troubles with Functionalism” (1978) and David Chalmers’s “Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia” (1995).

If mental states are functional states, there couldn't be zombies, i.e., something functionally equivalent to you but which yet doesn't have qualia (a sense of "what it's like" to be you... an inner life). Yet Block claims that there could be such zombies: for example, a functional duplicate of you whose components are actually all the citizens of China acting according to signals broadcast by satellites according to algorithmic rules. Even if the resulting system acts like you, it obviously isn't conscious.

Chalmers argues that if you buy this story about functional zombies being physically possible, you'd then need to explain the experiences of a creature half way between you and the zombie (like if you replaced your neurons with little circuits one by one, each of which exactly duplicated the function of that neuron), but you can't: If you have an experience of being red, and the zombie (even though it claims to have such an experience) doesn't, would the half-you/half-zombie have half an experience? A pale pink experience? A washed-out grey experience? A dimming experience? Or is there some point at which the lights suddenly go off, so the halfway point would be equivalent to either the before or after depending on where that point is? Chalmers thinks that none of the possible descriptions makes sense, so Block's argument doesn't work and functionalism is left standing. What do you think?

Do you hate weird thought experiments like these like Seth does? Do you think like Wes that Block and Chalmers are really talking past each other, that Block is only attacking reductive functionalism, and Chalmers's argument only succeeds in defending nonreductive functionalism (i.e., function and mentality are correlated, or more specifically supervenient, but not actually one and the same)? Do you think like Mark that this is a totally separate issue than the hard problem (which Block and Chalmers both agree is a real problem that functionalism doesn't solve), and so the other guys should stop dragging the conversation back to that every single episode? Or are you like Dylan who didn't show up to this episode?

Go start at our first philosophy of mind episode of this series if you want to understand everything here.

Continues with part two, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

Image by Solomon Grundy.

Explore why and how we take in the media we do through Mark's new Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast at prettymuchpop.com.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: David Chalmers, functionalism, ned block, philosophy of mind, philosophy podcast

Comments

  1. Richard McNelis says

    July 30, 2019 at 9:03 pm

    I’m totally enjoying this series (even if I’m not sure y’all are), and your discussions helped me understand functionalism.

    Reply
  2. Patrick Higgins says

    August 30, 2019 at 10:48 pm

    If an alien scientist was able to determine all of the physical inputs and outputs of human brains and formulate a fully functioning theory of mind without ever realizing that it actually produces a subjective experience–that it’s “like something” to be conscious–on the “inside,” doesn’t that put us in the same predicament with respect to computers? If the hypothetical alien scientist was wrong not to suspect that a “subjective experience” would arise from the neural activity of the brain, then who are we to say a computer or an AI capable of passing the Turing test wouldn’t have subjective experience arising from semiconductors? If one thinks the nature of subjective experience is tied intrinsically to the specific type of medium through which it exists–that of neurophysiology and chemistry–and not solely to information processing, and that therefore computers and AI can in principle never have subjective experience, then he/she would have to be ready to discard the original argument about the alien scientist, and with it the whole premise that the hard problem actually exists. It would seem contradictory to me to argue that there actually is a hard problem of consciousness while simultaneously arguing that an AI is, in principle, not capable of having a subjective experience by virtue of the components its mind is made out of. To me, what makes “the hard problem” so hard, and possibly unanswerable, is that even if an AI were sufficiently advanced enough to pass the Turing test, actually did have subjective experience, and was capable of communicating to us that it was having subjective experience, we would still not be able to take the AI’s word at face value.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 302: Erasmus Praises Foolishness (Part Two)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • MartinK on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • Wayne Barr on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in