The Zombie Argument from A Great Divide

Yes.
Consciousness is epiphenomenal

The functional (as in causally-efficacious) can be cleaved from the phenomenal. All the causally relevant features of the world could be in place, yet the facts of consciousness differ from what they are. "[I]t seems that we can remove the facts about experience, and still be left with a coherent causal story" (Chalmers, 1997, p. 26) In other words, there is a great divide between the causally efficacious and the phenomenal. There are different reasons for believing this to be the case. For example, Chalmers holds that the failure of the phenomenal (as opposed to the non-phenomenal) to logically supervene on the physical is enough to give us this schism. "...[N]atural [i.e.., on his view, non-logical] supervenience feels epiphenomenalist. We might say that the view is epiphenomenalist to a first approximation...the view makes experience explanatorily irrelevant." (1996, p 156). Another route to the schism is by adopting functionalism. We are, for the purposes of explaining our behaviour, functional systems, and functionally equivalent systems will, ipso facto, have the same behavioural capacities, and functional systems can be characterised and explained without reference to consciousness. The general idea is that, in virtue of our non-conscious properties, my qualia-less Zombie, any other functionally equivalent system to me, and I all behave the same way. Ergo, consciousness is epiphenomenal.

Response:

Zombies can do what we do, but not the way we do it, if we do some of what we do because we are conscious. There could be things that accomplish tasks we perform, without performing them the way we do. Compare, locomotion could be accomplished by the use of wheels, but there aren't any in nature. (See Dennett, 1984) However, in this context, this response is quite unsatisfying, since Zombie and I are supposed to be fine-grained functional equivalents.

It may be that zombies cannot do what we do, if some of what we do requires consciousness, since they are, ex hypothesi, not conscious. To claim that they are fine-grained functional equivalents yet not conscious would be inconsistent, if it should turn out that consciousness is a part of our causal story. Given our current knowledge, this is not a logical inconsistency (hence their conceivability), and there may be creatures that can behave as we do but are not conscious. However, what is required for fine-grained functional equivalence is, in part, an empirical question. Our inclination to think we can a priori leave consciousness out may be the result of thinking that we can treat consciousness separately from other psychological states, perhaps offering an account of the intentional while maintaining "a gloomy silence" (Fodor (1994, p. 121)) with regard to the phenomenal. As Marcel writes "...the nature of phenomenal experience depends on the conceptual knowledge that we entertain about ourselves" (1988, p. 129), and Lowe asserts that "how we conceive of physical objects is inextricably bound up to how they appear to us" (1995, p. 267). Akins writes that "[i]t is not clear that we do know how to separate our conscious experiences into two parts, the representational and qualitative aspects, or whether, indeed, this notion even makes sense." (1993, p. 267). Assuming a functional/phenomenal divide is begging the question with regard to epiphenomenalism.

On to the next page, The Argument from Deficits

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