Neurath's Boat

All you zombies

Richard Chappell has been recently engaged in a defense of Chalmer's zombie argument; it has been ongoing, but an early summary of his position is here. One issue has come to worry me. Chappell keeps emphasizing that he's talking about special non-third-personal facts, which is why he's not impressed by Brown's argument against non-physical third-personal phenomenal facts. Now, there are first-personal facts which are known to be irreducible to anything third-personal, as discussed for example in Lewis' "Attitudes De Dicto and De Se." But no zombie scenario is needed to show this. No duplicate of me is me, no matter how close the physical match (and as a counterpart theorist, I'd say that this holds across possible worlds; no physical duplicate of me in another possible world really is me in any strict sense).

Of course, that nobody except me has my perspective does not show that nobody except me has any perspective at all. At least, so one hopes, though the zombie argument does seem to invite us to take solipsism more seriously. It seems that via some sort of empathy, I can imagine being someone else. And I am inclined to think that, within the limitations of the accuracy of my empathic imaginings, the others I empathize with are actually having something like the consciousness of themselves that I'm imagining having.

A zombie scenario is one on which I would be making some mistake in thus projecting my imagined consciousness onto the zombie. Of course, many such mistakes are always to be expected, since there's so much I don't know about what's really going on with the others, but in the zombie case the error is supposed to be total, and not based on any of the usual ways of going wrong. If I think I'm imagining what it's like to be a zombie, I'm automatically entirely wrong.

This leads me to wonder what is supposed to make me wrong. I suppose Chappell wouldn't be very impressed with the question, as he thinks it's a brute fact whether consciousness is present or not, so he doesn't think any explanation should be expected. But I have to say that my sincere inability to figure out what could make me wrong makes me rather inclined to think I can't really conceive of zombies after all.

I suppose this could be turned against me, and I could be asked how I know that nobody else is me. Of course, perhaps I just don't. But perhaps it is just a simple matter of logic that I am who I am, and nobody else is; if it is thus a priori, then this would be a clear difference from the zombie case, where no a priori rescue seems available. I confess that this does strike me as plausible (interesting though the Buddhist alternative response is).

Meta-reasons and subjectivism

J. L. Mackie's classic work on ethics begins by saying "there are no objective values... The statement of this thesis is likely to provoke one of three very different reactions. Some will think it not merely false but pernicious; they will see it as a threat to morality and to everything else that is worthwhile, and they will find the presenting of such a thesis in what purports to be a book on ethics paradoxical or even outrageous. Others will regard it as a trivial truth, almost too obvious to be worth mentioning, and certainly too plain to be worth much argument. Others again will say that it is meaningless or empty, that no real issue is raised by the question whether values are or are not part of the fabric of the world."

I am in Mackie's third class; I do not believe that there is a real issue here. But I do agree with Mackie when he goes on to say "precisely because there can be these three different reactions, much more needs to be said." Those who think that there are real differences do, after all, give arguments. If I am right, there must be some problem with the arguments. So I shall try to explain what's wrong with Richard's argument.

I confess that I can't see how meta-reasons are supposed to become "mere" for the subjectivist in Richard's argument. Why treat meta-reasons any differently than any other reasons? They do, after all, have consequences, just like other reasons. For example, if things are as Richard describes, and I phi, there seems to be a very good chance that I will come to regret my actions later. This is not to say that potential regret is the sole reason not to phi, only to point out that meta-reasons seem to be connected to my interests and values, just like normal reasons; defying them seems to carry the risk of my interests and values not being served, just like normal reasons.

Of course, in Richard's example, exactly how doing phi conflicts with my values is opaque to me. This is unfortunate, no doubt, but hardly unusual. Probably unconscious reasons have more influence on our behavior than conscious reasons, after all, and unconscious reasons are ipso facto also opaque to us. It is clear to me that the subjectivist is committed to thinking it would be better if one could see more clearly, and so that one should, when possible, figure out what one's unconscious motivations are, or in Richard's case figure out what it is that the meta-reasons are pointing to, but I don't see any way in which the subjectivist is committed to saying that if one can't pierce the opacity, one is required to simply ignore those reasons.

Nozick's experience machine

I have long wondered just how much Nozick's case shows, and really whether it's very convincing at all (sure, most people say they wouldn't plug in, but look at how many hours they spend playing World of Warcraft, and that's not even as good as the Experience Machine). But for some reason it had not occurred to me to ask the question Felipe De Brigard decided to ask, which he briefly describes here. It didn't occur to me even though I always mention "The Matrix" when I discuss the experience machine, and always mention how strange I find it that anyone would want to leave the matrix given the setup in the movie. The results are what I think I would have expected, though that's what we always think when we see experimental results.
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