X-Message-Number: 11774
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:55:39 -0400
From: Daniel Crevier <>
Subject: Zombies and Darwin: the real paradox.

My posting #11741: Uploading and Zombies, attracted several comments.
Unfortunately, I guess I did not make myself clear enough, because 
none of them addressed the real point I was trying to make. So here it
is again, hopefully this time with the i's properly dotted.

The gradual uploading thought experiment shows that it is possible to
create a computer program with all the outwards appearances of con-
sciousness. Indeed, this program will react in exactly the same manner
as the person it is emulating. If you don't believe that such a being 
is really conscious, you are forced to conclude that it is what we 
called a zombie. While the very existence of such a being is rather
surprising, and this is what the comments on my earlier posting were
addressing, the real paradox lies elsewhere.

This being, which is not conscious but acts exactly as a consious per-
son, has all the darwinian survival advantages of consiousness. If in-
sulted or attacked, it will react with just as much vigor as if it 
really 'felt' the anger. It will behaviorally love its mate and protect
its children just as well as if it were really conscious. To get itself
out of a tight spot, it will scheme with just as much deviousness as if
it really felt the urgency of the situation. 

If you believe that all of this can happen without consciousness, you
are forced to admit that consciousness is what philosophers call an
'epiphenomenon'. It is something that is generated by the physical 
world, but has no effect whatsoever on it. If you believe that, 
you must also believe that to generate
true consciousness you need, above and beyond the machinery that 
generates the mere appearances of consciousness, additional mechanisms.
Robert Ettinger thinks you need something that 'binds time and space'.
Whatever that means, it does no sound like something simple to do.

The paradox is this one: we are products of natural evolution, and evo-
lution is parsimonious. It does not do anything without a reason. If
those complex mechanisms required to bind space and time do not provide
any evolutionary advantage, why do we have them?

Daniel Crevier

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