In class today we touched on the idea of philosophical zombies, creatures that have the same wiring and brain structure as “normal” humans but live their life with “the lights off”. Could these beings exist? I suppose this depends on how you interpret “lights off”. We touched on that this could imply that the body is going through the motions, they receive input and generate output. “Going through the motions” led to flashbacks of soccer practices when my coach would accuse of us doing this when going through drills. What he meant by this was not necessarily that we were doing anything wrong (he said shoot, we would shoot; he said pass, we would pass) but we were lacking a focus or passion for the sport. I suppose this would provide an example in favor of the existence of philosophical zombies, but I have trouble believing that you could “go through the motions” in all aspects of your life. The brain is wired to generate emotion through action potentials and the release of neurotransmitters, so I think eventually the philosophical zombie would have to encounter a stimulus in which they would have a genuine reaction to rather than just a generated output.
I definitely agree with your point! On a larger scale, people can lose who they are in the monotony of their lives. When they repeat the same action every day without considering their actions, do they ever rise above the functional consciousness? I agree that in repeating seemingly meaningless actions, people can lose their phenomenal consciousness and lose who they truly are.
I thought it was interesting talking about philosophical zombies also. I agree with you, it seems difficult to think of humans just going through the motions without having the corresponding mental states. But perhaps this idea goes back to ideas were were considering in the beginning: are philosophical zombies conscious at all? How do we know who is or is not conscious? How could I be sure that you are conscious?
I, also, agree. I think that movies, for example, play on this concept: someone goes through the motions of life and then they hit a sudden realization and begin to find something that means more to them. I think this is also the case, in some parts of life, it’s possible to just go through the actions (in your soccer example and in my tennis experience) but I think that overall, one cannot live their whole life with these feelings.
I believe you raise an interesting point, but I would like to take a step further. What if their is a person who is entirely emotionless: their entire lives they have never had an urge to do anything other than ‘just the motions.’ Would this hypothetical person be deemed a philosophical zombie, even though it was not their fault they were born without emotion?
Jonah I think you bring up a really good point. In my neuroscience class, we have talked about actual people who have disorders that limit their emotions or ability to plan for the future. Some of these people have incredibly impaired functioning; yet they are still considered human. I would like to think that an actual person would not be considered a philosophical zombie; however, these same traits exhibited in a zombie would probably not be labeled human.