alt Hacker NewsA philosophical zombie [1] is essentially a mobile, autonomous human body devoid of consciousness. Critically, still giving all of the external cues that it has in fact consciousness. It is supposed to prove that physicalism doesn't work. "The sense of consciousness" is used like a "soul, with extra steps".
In my humble opinion, which I have no way to prove or disprove, consciousness ("as a soul with extra steps") does not exist, and we are all philosophical zombies. Consciousness "as an amalgamation of complex biological signals and neural interactions that has evolved through millions of years as a successful survival strategy" does exist, and that is all that is needed.
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Serves me well for answering a comment before reading the article. This is basically what the author says, even pointing to the Philosophical zombie and all. Shame on me.
I know I'm not a philosophical zombie based on
>For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object, it would not feel any pain, but it would react exactly the way any conscious human would.
in the Wikipedia article because I don't get on well with the sharp poking. On the basis of Occam's razor I assume all other humans and higher animals are similar. It would be odd if evolution had made me different from all the others.