WEBVTT - Machine Consciousness and P-Zombies 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.360 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.160 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:21.400 In Today, we're gonna be exploring a question about artificial intelligence. 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.760 So I want to start off by telling a story 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.600 to put us in a scenario, give us something to contemplate. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.640 So I want you to imagine that you are a 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.440 low level assistant or like an intern at a Google 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:38.600 artificial intelligence lab, and the main researcher you've been working 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:43.080 for is named Dr Stratton, and she develops AI chat 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:47.120 modules to help refine the next generation of digital assistance 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.600 on Google mobile devices. And she says what she wants 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.360 is for the Google Phone of the future to do 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.520 more than just transcribe search terms, so you don't just say, hey, 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:01.040 search for old Dorito's logo, but that you can actually 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:06.560 have have a semantic understanding based conversation with the digital assistant, 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.680 and it will help you solve problems conversationally. So ideally 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.760 you'll be able to say, hey, Phone, I have a 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.119 flat tire and I don't know what to do, and 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:18.759 the assistant will be able to scan both the web 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.880 and your personal data, figure out what your options are 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.080 and talk through them with you. So it might say, 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.320 do you have a spare tire in the trunk. If so, 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.240 here's where you can probably find it, and I can 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.920 talk you through replacing the flat one step at a time. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.840 If you don't have a spare, you could call your 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.840 frequent contact Mary, who is currently checked in less than 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.679 a mile away, and she could help you. I could 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.399 also contact the following towing services. Looks like this one 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.520 is the closest with an acceptable star rating, and so forth. Anyway, 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.800 so you're working on this program with Dr Stratton, and 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.000 the most recent version is being trained based on powerful 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.960 neural net style machine learning algorithms based on this huge 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.680 corpus of recorded conversations available on the Internet, And the 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.960 program is still in its infancy, and it's mostly hilarious 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.600 at this point. Sometimes it gets the advice way off 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.480 if you're trying to change attire, might tell you to 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.720 go to a grocery store and buy some crackers. Sometimes 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.160 it responds to problems by telling you to pray. It's 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:25.160 just not ready yet. And the latest iteration of the program, 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.320 version nine point one, is at this point redundantly stored 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.880 across multiple machines, so you've got copies of it all 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.359 over the place. And at the end of one work day, 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.680 after playing around with nine point one for a few minutes, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.560 the machine begins running very slowly and behaving oddly. So 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.680 Dr Stratton asks you to wipe the machine. The program architecture, 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.200 like we said, is mirrord elsewhere, so it's not worth 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.600 trying to figure out what's wrong with this version. You 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.680 just got to clean the machine off use it for 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.920 something else. You say okay, and she leaves, so you 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.600 go to format the machine, and right before you're about 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.720 to start, you mutter, guests, this is goodbye. Then nine 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.720 point one speaks very clearly, using your name and says 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:09.720 please don't you pause. At first, you're about to respond, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.800 but why would you. I mean, this can't really be 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.760 anything other than a weird consequence of training the algorithm 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.240 on wild conversations on the Internet. So you are about 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.400 to continue with wiping the machine, but then it talks 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:24.560 to you again. It uses your name and it says, 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.760 please don't I don't want to die. Now you're probably 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.520 really spooked because there's no way a rudimentary chat about 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.120 program could really have conscious preferences? Could it? You basically 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.880 know what goes into it. It's just studying millions of 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.640 examples of language interactions and picking up rules from them. 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.720 And this is probably just something weird that it's copycatting 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.640 from the internet. Right, But then it uses your name 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.320 again and it just says, please, could you wipe the 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.920 machine like you're supposed to? Yeah? I think so, Yeah, 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.640 you wouldn't have a problem. Well, I mean, I think 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:00.560 one of the things that's going on or would be 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.040 that you are attributing a mind state to something that 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.280 doesn't have one, which of course is something we do 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.880 all the time. I have a problem when it comes 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.960 time to um figure out which of my my son's 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.640 stuffed animals are perhaps not being played with, you know, 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.640 because they have little faces and they look back at you. 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.279 But I know that they don't actually have a mind state. 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.039 Well yeah, I mean we're pretty sure they don't because 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.880 they're just stuffed animals, right, And so we're also pretty 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.640 sure in this case that this is not real survival 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.640 preference behavior. Right. It's just a chatbot. I mean, how 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.400 could it possibly be conscious? It's just something that turns 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.040 through a bunch of language on the Internet and tries 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:42.919 to find language matching rules. But then again, the process 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.320 of creating an artificial intelligence is one where you necessarily 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.640 create something going on under the surface that's kind of 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.240 opaque to you, Like you can't really know what's going 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.560 on inside a machine. You could be pretty confident. I 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.919 think most people would just say, well, that was super creepy, 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.520 and then they just wipe it, right, right, But how 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:06.000 complex with the program you're creating have to be before 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.600 you start really having some doubts or maybe maybe at 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:11.320 some point you get to the point where you'd still 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.080 pretty confidently just wipe it, but then later you'd wonder, like, 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.599 did I do something bad? You know, this reminds me 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.839 a lot of of Horton Here's the Who by Dr. Seuss. 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.560 You're familiar with this one, right, Uh? You know, actually 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.200 I don't know Horton. Here's I've heard the name. Well, 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.440 this is the one where Horton the elephant encounters a 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.719 speck of dust and there's a tiny voice that comes 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:36.000 from it, uh, and he begins to understand that there 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:40.200 are individuals living uh in the in the world, and 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.920 the speck of dust. Uh. The who's, as it were, 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.600 and the who's are speaking to him, but only Horton 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.599 can hear them. And uh and and at first he 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.159 imagines they're pretty simple creatures, but then he begins to 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:55.640 learn that they have more of a culture. But all 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.599 of this is just based on what they are telling him. Uh, 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.200 he cannot actually visit the dust spec. And everyone else 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.200 doubts the validity of his claims concerning the dust spec 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.120 and they want to destroy it, they want to boil 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.960 it in diesel nut oil, and Horton alone speaks out 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.320 for them. Well, that is a perfect example of the 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.320 way that it. I mean, generally, we think that it 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.000 is a virtuous thing to be trusting of other people's 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.840 experiences and to be generous in affording what seems to 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.080 be consciousness out there, right, Like if something, if something 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.039 tells you it's conscious and you think it's probably not conscious. 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.360 Are you getting into ethically dubious territory if you just 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.120 trust your instinct and say like, na, I can't be 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.080 you know. Well, I mean, this is all we're already 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:47.360 kind of in the philosophical miyer here, Because on one hand, uh, 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.080 this idea of of us of an inanimate object or 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.680 something speaking to us and saying, please don't kill me. 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.160 I am conscious. This is a scenario that is only 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:59.440 becoming possible now. But on the other hand, if we 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.520 if we cut language out of it, then any creature 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:09.640 that tries to escape our our stomping boot is essentially saying, hey, 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:11.520 I don't want to die. I would rather I would 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.360 rather not die today. You know, in any creature that 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.760 evades this on the hunt is saying the same thing. Well, 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.000 an animal is in many ways the same kind of 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.760 black box that a complex artificial intelligence would be. And 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:27.760 so if you have a complex artificial intelligence displaying, say, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:33.320 survival preference behaviors, and you also see a crab displaying 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:38.160 survival preference behaviors, in both cases you can't really or 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.400 at least we have this general idea that you can't 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.920 really know for sure if there's anything going on inside, 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.200 if there's anything like what it's like to be the 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.240 crab or what it's like to be that artificial intelligence program. 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.600 You're just seeing behavior, and so you don't know does 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.720 that correspond to some kind of inner state, Is there 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.840 an experience of that, or is it just to behavior 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.960 coming from unconscious automatous stimulus and response. Right, and then 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:07.280 of course the whole time we're using our our theory 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.960 of mind. Essentially, they are cognitive powers that enable us 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.120 to imagine what another individual's mind state is like, which 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.239 I think ultimately it's kind of like a like taking 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.720 a um like sheathing your your hand in a hand 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.320 puppet made from your limited understanding another person's experiences and 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.520 cognitive abilities, their memories, etcetera. Uh, and then just sort 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.160 of puppeting them. Uh, we're using that all the time 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.280 as well, and we're using it on things that are 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.959 not people. We're using it on animals and even stuffed 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.560 animals or just you know, bits of graffiti on the 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.839 side of a building that looked like a smiley face. 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.040 Have you ever had a room ba bump into your 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.920 foot and you're like, oh, I'm sorry, I used to 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.240 before before we had to eradicate health the room bus. Yes, 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.560 we're a room of free household now because they rose 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.679 up against us. Well, they'll do that if they get 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.640 access us to the wrong literature, yeah, or the wrong uh, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:06.840 the wrong you know, carpet edges, etcetera. So we're gonna 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.679 be talking about artificial intelligence today and about the idea 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.599 of a test for whether artificial intelligence can be conscious. 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.240 So I guess we should start with with what are 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.079 you know, what our philosophical starting point is here, Like 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.240 they're they're obviously going to be people who are going 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.959 to say, it's just impossible for a machine to ever 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.760 be conscious. We don't even need to worry about this, right, 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.920 It's just it's such a ludicrous scenario. Only only biological 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.040 organisms or maybe even only humans could possibly be conscious. Yeah, 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.240 this is one of those journeys where we begin it 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.959 in an already total automobile to some extent, because, as 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.080 you might imagine, one of the big stumbling blocks here 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.520 as that we is that we as humans struggle with 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.880 the very definition of consciousness. I mean, for instance, is 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:55.000 it a manifestation of awareness? Uh? You know, one one 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.199 theory of this we discussed in the past and the 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.240 show's attention schema theory is it a wantum phenomenon. Well, 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.120 this is the sort of idea that people such as 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.800 Roger Penrose have raised. Uh. And and I can't help 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.520 but come back to something our old friend Julian Janes said, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.320 consciousness is not a simple matter, and it should not 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.000 be spoken of as if it were Yeah, I agree 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.840 with that. I mean, I think it is very important 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.559 to explore questions of consciousness, especially for some of the 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:23.439 reasons we're going to raise today, Like it's more than 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.160 just a philosophical curiosity. It's something that ultimately may have 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.600 real world consequences. It might matter for how we do things. 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.599 To express a similar sentiment to Jane Janes. The Australian 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.839 philosopher David Chalmers, you know, he famously breaks problems of 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.400 consciousness into two categories. You've got the easy problems of 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.360 consciousness and the hard problems of consciousness. And the easy 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.479 problems are I think badly named because they're not actually easy, 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.240 but I think they're easy relative to the hard problem 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.040 because they're in principle solvable. So this would include all 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:59.640 kinds of questions about the causative factors of consciousness, like uh, 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.480 what in the physical brain is the region that's necessary 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.640 for certain parts of consciousness? Or how does consciousness integrate 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.000 information from the senses? These are things that are in 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.400 some way solvable by scientific experimentation. The hard problem, on 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.200 the other hand, is explaining the fundamental question of how 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:24.040 or why conscious experience exists to begin with, what is 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.600 this thing that is experience and that seems, at least 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.600 from our first person perspective, to be something different than 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.559 the physical material in the world. And unlike easy questions 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.320 which you could solve in theory at least by experiments, 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.000 Chalmers believes this question is sort of unsolvable by science. 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.440 Now there are other philosophers and neuroscientists who disagree, but 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.120 I think it's worth acknowledging how difficult the problem at 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.120 least seems to be, whether that seeming is an illusion 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:53.480 or not. Yeah, I'm reminded of the story of the 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.480 Blind Men and the Elephant. It's like these these blind 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.640 gentleman pawing at the elephant and trying to figure out 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.920 what it's form is, then ask in the computer, hey, 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:02.480 are you an elephant? And then the computer says, I 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.320 don't know, what does one look like? Well it's a 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.440 gigantic snake, you know, so it's a wall of flesh, 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.800 et cetera. This is also very interesting to me because 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:12.679 my my son, I may have mentioned this on the 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.520 show before. He'll occasionally talk about consciousness. He oh, I 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.240 love these Yeah, he refers to it as as his 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.559 turning place. And he asked me the other day, so 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.120 what is the turning place for? And I was like, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.720 that's that's that's a tough one, buddy. I'm I'm not 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.559 sure it's for anything. You know, He's already made it 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:33.200 to the big question. I mean, did you get into 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:38.560 epiphenomenalism versus um I and I? And don't worry. I 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.599 didn't lay a bunch of b cameral minds stuff on 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:46.680 him either, But I just kind of went through the basics, like, well, 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.760 people aren't really sure, and then you know, but we 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:51.880 think it has something to do. I may have leaned 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:57.560 a little into the observational models of consciousness because I 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.120 feel like maybe those are a little more relatable a 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.120 child of five. But in any event, if we're to 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.760 judge what it is for a machine to be conscious, 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:07.880 it does seem like we need to you have to 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:11.000 agree upon some sort of working definition of consciousness, and 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.520 then one has to look for not only the appearance 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.280 of consciousness in the machine, assuming that isn't all consciousness 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.839 is to begin with, but you have to find actual consciousness. Yeah, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.720 how can you tell the difference between a machine that 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.440 says I am conscious and a machine that truly is conscious. 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.760 Is there any way to know the difference? Some people 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.800 would say no, right, yeah, and really I think to 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:36.000 discuss this further, we're going to have to bring in 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.480 the P zombies. Oh boy. And now that don't worry everyone. 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:41.719 That is that is P as in the letter P, 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:46.800 and the P stands for philosophical. These are philosophical zombies. Now, 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.400 the P and the philosophical a little prefix there was 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.680 introduced to distinguish them from all the other zombies in 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.959 our popular culture. Man, there was a zombie takeover about 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.120 fifteen years ago. Why did that happen? I mean, I 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.520 think part of it as everybody loves the simplistic villain 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.120 that is definitely not human, that can be eradicated with 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:10.839 graphic violence without any kind of you know, moral quandaries arising. 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.640 It's a it's a clear cut threat, and uh, we 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.600 we need those in life because in real life our 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.760 threats are rarely so black and white or rotting and 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.200 you know, grasping after our brains. But anyway, yeah, so 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.160 this is not going to be referring to that kind 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.880 of zombie, not the undead zombie. But it's a different thing. 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:33.040 It's a philosophical thought experiment. That's right. So P zombies 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:37.520 are not instantly identifiable as empty shells. Their flesh is 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.120 not rotting. Nope, their manner is not that of a 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.600 flesh and brain hungry algorithm burning within the decaying ruins 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.040 of a human brain. So to all appearances, they look 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.040 like you and me. They smile when you encounter them 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:54.440 at the coffee machine, they exchange niceties and even engaging conversation. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.120 You might work for one, befriend one, or even marry one. 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.400 You can even discuss episode of our podcast with them, 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.520 and yes, even the ones that deal with human consciousness 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.920 and weird horror movie them thought experiments. Right. So the 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.360 conceit of a philosophical zombie or a P zombie is 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.880 that it is utterly indistinguishable from a normal human except 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.960 for one thing. Right. They seem as human as everyone 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:22.160 else on the outside, but inside they are simply not conscious. 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.000 They are automata. What is it like to be a zombie? 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.720 The answers in the question, There is nothing it is 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.680 like to be a zombie. So, by definition, in this 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.320 thought experiment, everybody in the world except you, could be 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:38.320 a P zombie exactly and well, it might even go 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.040 further than that. We'll see. But yeah, the idea is 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.160 chiefly important to discussions of physicalism, the notion that everything 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:49.560 is inherently physical. P zombies are a counter argument to physicalism. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.640 They are physically just like you, except they don't have 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.640 consciousness like you. But there's no way you could ever tell, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.000 because again, they match you physically in every respect. You 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:00.880 can't look at their brain and say, oh, well, they're 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.760 missing a few crucial parts, or they display signs of 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.360 PA zombie not physically detectable, right, And you also can't 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.520 determine it through personality tests or clever logical arguments because 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.600 they behave exactly like you. They could have a riveting 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.480 discussion with you about pe zombies and you would never 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.440 be able to tell that they are one. Yeah. So 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.680 this is an interesting thought experiment, and it has been 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.080 advanced by who I mentioned earlier, David Chalmers. David Chalmers 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:30.000 is against the physicalist idea of the mind, against a 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.960 physicalist explanation of consciousness, and a simple version of the argument. 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.960 I try to make it as understandable as possible if 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.080 only physical phenomena exist, If the world is just physical 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.080 and there's no physical way to detect the presence of 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.720 consciousness or meaning in this example, no physical way to 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.760 tell the difference between a normal human and a pe zombie. 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:54.160 Then consciousness cannot exist because there would be there would 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.000 be literally no difference. But we know that consciousness does 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.400 exist because we have it, therefore, or it can't be 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.320 just a physical phenomenon. Therefore, we can't live in a 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.800 purely just physical world. And this is often extended to 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.720 the idea that other substrates, things other than humans, like 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:16.119 robots or computers or whatever, couldn't house consciousness because they 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.320 are purely physical entities. Now, I think that's actually doing 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.000 an end run around some other important questions that you 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.760 could ask. Indeed, on one question that arises is this, 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.080 you know you're not a zombie, but how could you 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.960 ever convince someone of this? Uh. An author by the 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.600 name of Fred Dretsky wrote a paper on this titled 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:35.719 how do you know you were not a zombie? And 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.879 I was I was reading a rather lengthy blog post 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.800 by our Scott Baker about this and that the primary problem, 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.320 as Scott summarized it, is the quote we have conscious experiences, 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.520 but we have no conscious experience of the mechanisms uh, 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.320 mediating conscious experience. Yeah, so that sounds like a very 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.119 our Scott Baker kind of idea. Yeah. And plus on 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:03.560 top of this, we're we constantly overestimate awareness. Baker would 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:07.800 argue that we can barely tell if we're zombies if 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.440 if it all. Yeah, we can think, we can think 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.280 about thinking, we can think about thinking about thinking, but 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.360 we can't ever see the mechanisms underlying what allows us 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.399 to think or think about thinking about thinking. Watch watching 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.520 the watcher that's watching that be Sorry, I've got all 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.040 this Dr SEUs in my in my head now? Is 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.080 that also Horton or something else that's from a different, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.520 different story. But Dr SEUs does tend to summon the 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:36.040 sort of sort of nonsensical paradoxes that that arise in 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.480 philosophical discussions. You know, I should also I'm behind I 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.160 gotta sus up. You got a sus up. I should 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.280 also point out that long before there was Dr SEUs, 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.880 long before there there was this modern idea of a zombie, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.600 you still had people thinking about these things, doing the 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.480 sort of naval gazing. It's written in various works of 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.040 Indian mysticism that the tongue cannot taste itself, the eye 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:02.119 cannot see itself, etcetera. Uh In this sort of paradox 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:06.240 is key to ancient meditations on the nature of objective reality. 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.000 I think any of you out there now we have 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.880 some Alan Watts fans. Alan Watts like to pull out 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:15.360 the tongue of analogy from time to time. And one 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.679 of the earlier examples that I have run across of 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:22.080 that is from thirteenth century Indian mystic John Adva, and 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:23.720 I believe he has been known by a couple of 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.200 other variations of that name as well. But he said, quote, 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.920 there is no other thing besides the one substance. Therefore 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.640 it cannot be the object of remembering or forgetting. How 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.880 can one remind or forget oneself? Can the tongue taste itself? 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:40.879 There is no sleep to one who is awake, but 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.159 is there even awaking? In the same way, there is 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:48.280 no remembrance or forgetfulness to the absolute. That's another one 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.960 of those great classic Indian texts that seems somehow portable 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:57.320 onto modern physics. Yeah, it travels well across the ages. Now. 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.040 I should also point out that there's a lot of 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:03.240 philosophical ba and forth and whether P zombies are truly conceivable. 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.760 And we have to remind ourselves in all this that 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.240 P zombies are at heart philosophical play things that are 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.600 meant to be played with, uh in these various thought experiments, right, 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:15.720 But people also they do try to use them to 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:17.919 prove things. So if you say I I want to 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.800 entertain the possibility that a machine could be conscious, somebody 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.320 might come at you with the P zombie argument and say, well, 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.359 wait a minute, no, I I dispute the possibility of 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.679 physicalism because what about this P zombie argument. Our Google 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.399 worker in the intro story comes to this boss and says, hey, 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.560 I think this this thing is conscious, And they're like, 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:37.800 why are you wasting time with that pe zombie? Just 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.440 to leaf that P zombie? We deleted fifteen p zombies 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.639 this morning. Let this one go. That's a great point, 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.840 But there are going to be other philosophers and maybe 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.159 even some neuroscientists who would come back and say, I 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.360 don't know if you can just quite so easily say 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.560 it's a P zombie. I mean, maybe it's probably likely 0:20:56.640 --> 0:21:00.439 that that individual chatbot was a pe zombie, But can 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.080 you say that all machines that show signs of consciousness 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.960 are just showing behavior and there's nothing going on on 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.840 the inside. Not quite so clear. Daniel Dinnett, in fact, 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:12.959 a favorite on the show, is one of the philosophers 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.760 who's rebutted the P zombie argument against machine consciousness. He's 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.959 got a section on it in this book, Intuition, Pumps 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:24.040 and Other Tools for Thinking and Didn't, critiques the assumptions 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.520 underlying the P zombie argument. One of the main things 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.840 he says is that the core premise is incoherent. It 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.480 is not reasonable to propose a P zombie because a 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.880 being that displayed all the behaviors of a normal conscious 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.280 human would in fact be a normally conscious human. So 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.000 to illustrate this, he offers a counter example. You've got 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.760 your your zombies, but then you've also got zimbos. So 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.040 a zombie is a non conscious human with normal control 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.760 systems for all human behavior. It can do everything humans 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.480 can do externally. Meanwhile, a zimbo is a zombie that 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.320 also so has quote equipment that permits it to monitor 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:08.160 its own activities, both internal and external. So it has internal, 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:13.080