Zombie Killer (consciousness, functionalism, and intentionality).  
Zombie Killer 
by
Nigel J.T. Thomas Ph.D. Department of Humanities,
Rio Hondo College, Whittier, CA.
Paper read at the Toward a Science of Consciousness (Tucson II) Conference,
Tucson, AZ, April 1996.
[Now published in: Stewart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak, & Alwyn C. Scott 
(eds.). Toward a Science of Consciousness II: The Second Tucson Discussions and 
Debates. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998, pp. 171-177] 
Abstract 
     Philosopher's zombies are hypothetical beings behaviorally, functionally, 
and perhaps even physically indistinguishable from normal humans, but who lack 
our consciousness. Many people seem to be convinced that such zombies are a real 
conceptual possibility, and that this bare possibility entails that 
understanding human consciousness must remain forever beyond the reach of 
science. However, the conceptual entailments of zombiehood have not been 
sufficiently examined. This brief article shows that any way of understanding 
the behavior of zombies that does in fact support the suggested entailment, 
leads to contradictions and absurdities. Zombies are not conceptually possible. 
Note 1: Although this paper may read like a defense of conventional 
computational functionalism, that is not really my aim. I dislike the zombie 
argument because, by erecting a spurious problem with functionalism, it actively 
misdirects our attention away from the real deficiencies of the doctrine. It is 
surely no accident that most functionalists find the idea of the zombie so 
compelling. The doctrine that cognitive mental states (and even some emotional 
ones) are to be identified with functionally defined brain states seems to 
explain quite a lot, and is quite appealing so long as one ignores the fact of 
consciousness (as people usually did in the era when the functionalist doctrine 
was first being developed). Once we remember that fact, however, functionalism 
can only be saved either by making the counter-intuitive stipulation that, as a 
matter of brute inexplicable (and non-explanatory) metaphysical fact, functional 
states of mind-brains just are conscious states, or else (more plausibly) by 
restricting the scope of functionalism just to the non-conscious aspects of 
mentality, and thus admitting the possibility of functional zombies. The fact 
that they are not possible is thus a sign of an incoherence in functionalism 
even if (following the zombiphiles) we construe it as merely a theory of 
cognition rather than a complete theory of mind. This suggests that it is 
impossible properly to understand consciousness and cognition independently of 
one another. For something on my positive views as to how consciousness and 
cognition may be understood together see A Stimulus to the Imagination, and Are 
Theories of Imagery Theories of Imagination? (although the full story remains to 
be written). 
Note 2: Although the paper is now in print, I would prefer that the version 
presented here be considered the definitive one. It is what I actually wrote. 
The published version was severely hacked about by an overzealous and 
philosophically incompetent copy editor. Several logical and terminological 
errors were introduced, as well as many stylistic changes, very few of which 
seemed to me to be improvements. Although I did manage to get the worst errors 
corrected at the proof stage, many of the gratuitous stylistic changes remain, 
and, as I never got a chance to see the final printer's proofs due to this 
debacle, there are also some typographical errors in the published version. (I 
understand that I was not the only contributor to the book to have a problem 
with the copy editing!) 



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Links to more philosophical (and other) zombie material
Zombies on the Web.
by Dave Chalmers. 
Zombies Invade Philosophy!
by Larry Hauser. 



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