Zombies and Simulation

Richard Brown
(2012) Journal of Consciousness Studies 19(7-8)

In his engaging and important paper David Chalmers argues that perhaps the

best way to navigate the singularity is for us to integrate with the AI++ agents. One

way we might be able to do that is via uploading, which is a process in which we

create an exact digital duplicate of our brain. He argues that consciousness is an

organizational invariant, which means that a simulation of that property would

count as the real thing (a simulation of a computer is a computer, and so being a

computer is an organizational invariant). If this is the case then we can rest assured

that we will retain our consciousness inside such a simulation. In this commentary I

will explore these ideas and their relation to philosophical zombies. I will argue that

dualism could be true of the zombie world and that the conclusion of the standard

zombie argument needs to be modified to deal with simulation. In short I argue that

if one endorses biologism about consciousness then the conceivability of zombies is

irrelevant to the physicalism/dualism debate.

Interestingly Chalmers has pointed out that thinking about simulations gives

us one concrete way of visualizing Cartesian dualism (Chalmers 2005). If we think of

a person inside a perfect simulation but whose body is outside the simulation (like

in the movie the Matrix) then all of the things that dualists like Descartes thought

were true would have been true. From the point of view of the person inside the

simulation no amount of physics (i.e. the physics true in the simulation) would allow

them to deduce the existence of the body outside of the simulation. This would make

the body outside the simulation nonphysical from the point of view of those in the
simulation (where to be nonphysical just is being non-deducible from a completed

physics).

Chalmers has elsewhere talked about zombies and the problems their

conceivability entails for physicalism (Chalmers 2009). Zombies are creatures that

have the exact same microphysical structure as I do but who lack consciousness all

together. Perhaps surprisingly we can use the above reasoning to show that

Cartesian dualism could be true for zombies as well! We can imagine our zombie

twins also being very motivated to create zombie AI and maybe even do so by

evolving these agents in virtual worlds. We can imagine the zombies creating

zombie AI++ and wondering (in their zombie way) what the best course of action

would be in such a case. We can even imagine our zombie twins wanting to be

uploaded into their simulated worlds. Zombies in perfect simulations of their

environments would think that they were conscious, as per the above arguments.

They would have all the same beliefs etc as you would in the exact same simulated

environment. The crucial point is that zombies would live the very same lives

whether in the simulation or not. In either case they (allegedly) lack consciousness,

yet in one case Cartesian dualism is true and in the other case it is false. But if

dualism can be true at the zombie world then we seem to have missed what is

essential to Cartesian dualism. This makes is seem as though the debate between the

Cartesian dualist and the non-dualist is really a debate about whether we in fact live

in a simulated world or not

Now what about us when we actually upload into a perfect simulation? Then

it seems as if Cartesian dualism is true of us as well. Let us explore this a bit.

Suppose that, as some theorists have suggested, consciousness depends on some

biological property of the brain. Let us call this kind of view biologism about

consciousness. There are many reasons to suppose that this is true. But of course,

there are some disagreements out there. Let us put these disagreements aside for

the moment and just stipulate, for purposes of discussion, that consciousness

depends on some biological property of the brain. According to this view non-

biological organisms cannot be conscious. It is important to note that this view is

neutral as between physicalism and dualism. A physicalist who endorses biologism

will think that consciousness just is something biological, as Ned Block tends to lean

towards. A dualist who accepts biologism will hold that only the biological

properties of the brain are correlated with non-physical conscious properties

(perhaps Huxley was in this camp).

Now let us suppose that we have reached a period of time were we can

accomplish uploading. When we upload we somehow create a functional duplicate

of the original brain. This could be done in either of the ways that Chalmers

canvasses in his paper. For instance it could be done by serially slicing the brain and

scanning it thereby creating a virtual duplicate of it (destructive uploading) or it

could be done using nanotechnology replacing neuron by neuron. Either way at the

end of this process we have a virtual duplicate of a human being. Now, according to

our previous stipulations this functional duplicate will not be conscious. This is

because it will not have the relevant biological property. But we can stipulate that

this functional duplicate, in its virtual world, will produce all the same behavior that

its non-duplicated biological twin would produce. We can even take this a step
further and imagine hooking up this functional duplicate of a brain in the virtual

world to a robotic body in our world. We stipulate that this robotic body does not

have a brain and so also lacks the relevant biological properties postulated to be

necessary and sufficient for consciousness.

So what have we got here? Remember we have stipulated that consciousness

depends on some biological property in the human brain. Given that stipulation,

what we have here is a zombie. A zombie, by definition, is a creature physically

identical to me but which lacks consciousness. To make it the case that we really

have a physical duplicate we can take this even further by imagining that this takes

place entirely inside a perfect simulation of our world. In that simulated world

there is a simulated body controlled by a functional duplicate of my brain. From the

point of view of this simulated world there is no consciousness. This is simply

because weve stipulated that consciousness depends on some biological property of

the brain. But given this we come to an interesting conclusion. We seem to have

conceived of zombies in the way that the original zombie argument requires.

Some may be skeptical that what we have here is really a zombie as

traditionally defined so lets take a moment to review. Chalmers (2009) has argued

that it is conceivable that we have (P & ~Q). Where P stands for the completed

microphysical theory of our world and Q is some phenomenal truth, like that I see

blue. Chalmers (2005) also argues elsewhere that this completed microphysical

theory could be computed. This means that we could devise a virtual world that was

an exact functional duplicate of our world. All of the laws of physics would be the

same from the point of view of this virtual world. Indeed we cannot know a priori
that the actual world is not a simulation in this sense. In this virtual world we have

our functional duplicates of biological human beings. So, in this virtual world we

have P, the completed microphysics of our world, and, given that we are assuming

that biologism is true, not Q. We could, of course, stipulate that in this world there

are biological organisms outside the simulation, hooked into it in the appropriate

way, and then we would have consciousness in that world. But we are here

assuming that biologism is true about consciousness and therefore in this world,

which from its point of view is a microphysical duplicate of ours, we have traditional

zombies.

But if so then the original zombie argument is irrelevant to the dispute

between physicalists and dualists. This follows from the fact that both the

physicalists and the dualist can endorse biologism about consciousness. If this is

right then the zombie argument may really be a test for whether one thinks we are

living in a simulated world rather than whether physicalism or dualism is true. In

fact what is interesting about this line of argument is that it connects very closely to

things that Chalmers has said elsewhere in his work. For instance he has

hypothesized that information may be the fundamental unit of reality (Chalmers

2003; Chalmers 2005) and that perhaps information has a dual aspect. One aspect,

being the physical as we understand it the other aspect, being the properties of

conscious experience as we feel them. This line of thought fits very nicely with the

view of the zombie argument here sketched.

Now of course this entire discussion has been predicated on the idea that we

first stipulate that biologism about consciousness is true, or that consciousness

depends on some biological properties of the human brain. Chalmers has argued

that this is most likely incorrect. And here, I am not talking about his zombie

argument. Instead I mean his argument that consciousness is an organizational

invariant (Chalmers 1995). This is not the place to address this argument but the

prospects for a reply seem good. After all it is an empirical question whether we will

ever really be able to enact the kind of sci-fi scenarios that Chalmers appeals to in

making his anti-biologism arguments. And it is a further empirical question about

whether they will proceed in the way he imagines, but this is an argument for

another day.

At the very least we can point out that if one accepts some form of biologism

about consciousness, as many do, then one can be a physicalist and grant the

conceivability of zombies as well as that conceivability implies possibility without

any threat to physicalism. To those, like me, who find the prospects for biologism

about consciousness to be good and who want to endorse physicalism as well as the

conceivability of zombies and the link between conceivability and possibility this is

a promising strategy; a way of having ones cake and eating it too!

Work cited:

David J. Chalmers (1995). Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia. In Thomas
Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience. Ferdinand Schoningh.

David J. Chalmers (2003). Consciousness and its Place in Nature. In Stephen P.
Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.

David J. Chalmers (2005). The Matrix as Metaphysics. In Christopher Grau (ed.),
Philosophers Explore the Matrix. Oxford University Press.

David J. Chalmers (2009). The Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism. In
Brian P. McLaughlin & Sven Walter (eds.), Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of
Mind. Oxford University Press.