P Zombie Quotes

“Well, I think that this is just a question for linguists and lexicographers. Although, as previously mentioned, a person needs to sense another person and needs to think about the person to behave in a certain way, which requires conscious thought, is it possible for a programmed reaction, or a programmed way of behaving, to be defined as behavior? Let me elaborate: if a normal human being is slapped in the face, the person would sense the slap and reflexively think of things such as how painful, unexpected, or annoying it was. Then, the person would say “ow” or maybe try to slap the person back. However, a p-zombie would react by saying “ow,” or by slapping the person back, but it is not doing any of this out of its own will, because without conscious thought, it doesn’t have a will. Something in the p-zombie could cause it to react without having to think, like with a robot; if I were to say “hi” to a robot, it could be programmed to say “hi” back, but it would only do it because it was programmed to do it, not because it senses that a person is saying “hi” and thinks of it as a friendly greeting. If it is possible for a being to be programmed like that, it could do such things, but determining whether or not actions like this are forms of behavior still depends on how society defines behavior. When a person behaves a certain way, he/she provides a reaction for a person. When a robot says “hi” to a person who just said “hi”, it is reacting to that person, so this could be viewed as a behavior, but the dictionary definition is a bit ambiguous, because it doesn’t specify whether the way one acts has to be conscious (like with a normal human being) or unconscious (like with a robot), so linguists and lexicographers need to establish that parameter to define behavior. If linguists and lexicographers were to say that behavior, by definition, does not have to be conscious, then a p-zombie could be conceivable.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“Anyways, I am not very sure if anything like hypnosis or thought control would make a philosophical zombie. Trying to “program” an already-conscious person does not seem conducive to making a being like a philosophical zombie, because of the freewill in thinking that I discussed while talking about reality and anti-realities. Because a person is free to think, he or she would have to choose whether or not they should be convinced by someone, or submit to hypnosis/programming, in this case. By making this decision, a person would have to sense what they could submit to, and think about it in order to make a decision as to whether or not they should let themselves act based on some kind of programming. These actions require conscious thought, even just a few seconds of it. As of right now, I believe that creating a philosophical zombie, although possibly conceivable depending on what lexicographers and linguists do, may not be possible in real life.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation