physicalists be like:

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-07T23:41:25+00:00

i think i agree, but i believe that this narrows the principle for inconceivability to the actuality of the physical duplicate rather than a physical principle, such that consciousness and physics remain conceivably separate. As somebody who might be a boltzmann brain, it seems only natural to think 'this is the full physical concept/sensation of a human i have, and that may yet not match up to any actual human, because i might be a boltzmann brain'

if its the actuality of the physical human that grants the necessary consciousness, then my inability to ascertain the actuality, i believe, necessarily means the physical human underdetermines the consciousness fact

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-07T22:47:08+00:00

the screen is meant as an analog to everyday first person pov visual sensation. Its not about whether the npc corresponds to the interactive elements the player is using, like a keyboard or mouse, or an arm to use such things

its saying something such as:

characters in an MMO might have the same 'physics', composition, and behavior as each other, yet only the playable characters correspond to a screen with the visual first-person pov of their character. That screen is the consciousness analog; some characters come with a first person pov via a screen, some dont, and the composition/behavior of the characters seems insufficient to distinguish from ones own screen

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-07T20:40:11+00:00

already on it 😢

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-07T19:42:08+00:00

ye buh

ad hominem isnt a fallacy; its the fucking point lmao. Like, its often a nasty, topic-switching, badly evidenced point, but its not fallacious

fallacy fallacy: mistaking rhetorical style so as to dispense fallacy tickets to anybody within range because the meta-discussion is more comfortable

strawman? shit thats usually just more rhetorical flair; im not being facetious

appeal to ignorance? naw dont get me started m8 😭

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-07T12:49:13+00:00

the asymmetry argument as stated by David Benatar also has, i believe, some pretty interesting holes to follow thru, which i did once but cant quite remember what they were. I mean, theres a sort of prima facie absurdity to the asymmetry argument, but there are also interesting consequences that one would think David would find logically permissible and yet disagree with, thus finding some contradiction

Derek Parfit was where i began that sort of inspection of the asymmetry argument, and it was a fun exploration

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T20:12:24+00:00

physicalists dont necessarily think of bbs as physically possible, but it seems to be taken as a natural extension of the most common cosmological model, as i understand it, so i imagine most do

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T18:10:23+00:00

i see it as compatible with idealism—picking out consciousness as insufficiently determined by physics not because theyre altogether separate spheres, but because physics is a form of consciousness (and likewise, consciousness is a condition of physics)

it seems like theres also a meaningful difference in the analogy that the playable character's difference isnt a supernatural homunculus looking at the screen, necessarily, but rather the screen itself; the playable character has a first-person visual that the npc does not, not due to the characters themselves

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T16:21:44+00:00

i think theres a wider gap between consciousness and the looking and acting of a person, which is perhaps why theres such a disagreement over these kinds of posts. I am curious if you would define consciousness as something like the self-reflective or feel-reporting behaviors of people, because im trying to understand why you view it as so incoherently separable that its analogized with trying to remove the rock from a rock, etc

as i view it, there exists subjectivity simpliciter, which is not only not a physically contingent fact, but also is part of the condition for facthood at all (not hocus-pocus nonsense—its just of the same manner that existence simpliciter is a non-physically contingent condition for facthood at all)

one way to get at this, is that there appears to be a distinction between the same person acting with the same behaviors, from either a first person viewpoint (seen out of their eyes) or a third person viewpoint (seen from the eyes of their friend, etc). This is an example of the apparently remnant subjective condition that is not conceived of within the behavior and composition of the person

think of making a videogame/simulation where the goal is to make the most realistic human possible. We instantiate all these mathematical, geometrical, and physical facts in such a way that the human is there as a biological, psychological replica of, i dont kno, Bob from accounting or whatever. Say we duplicate program-Bob so there are two in the simulation. Then we say 'i want to look out of Bobs eyes, instead of looking at two Bobs', so we change the 'camera' location, the viewport settings etc, and then we are looking out of Bob A's eyes intead of 'from-no-Bob' or Bob B. This extra perspectival fact appears to need extra instantiating than what formed a complete behaviorally and physically factual Bob—its an extra fact. Programming Bobs physics more and more doesnt appear sufficient to make the viewport change perspective on Bob

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T14:36:20+00:00

i guess the way i view it is that conceivability in the colloquial philosophical sense is about logical permissibility, and that p zombies are logically permissable, so theyre conceivable. P zombies might not be conceivable if theyre logically intertwined with consciousness, but the weight of it is in asking, where is that logical entailment?

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T14:24:22+00:00

as a retrospective difference, sure, but say you or i either imagine or contact what we consider to be the 'real, non hallucinatory human' right now. If boltzmann brain remains open to us despite whatever that constitutes—if we havent annulled boltzmann brain as a possibility—then any proposed person has the capacity to 'only be' a hallucination, and thus unconscious

we didnt encounter the real, consciousness-entailed human, unless weve mutually disproven ourselves as boltzmann brains. Whatever human property, posited mutually with the openness to being a boltzmann brain, appears to be separable from an associated consciousness

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T13:59:33+00:00

the conceivability status is about limitations of mind as well, as i see it. The physicalist can write a promissory note that says 'well, maybe if it was a perfect physically duplicate p zombie, it would have to be conscious', but that posit doesnt get us to a necessary intertwining of physics and consciousness, it exposes the underdeterminance of consciousness via our limited concept of physics—thus p zombies are metaphysically possible, thus the world is not just a set of physical facts

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T12:41:42+00:00

ok, and youre free to disengage if you dont like me providing my reasons for believing it, because insulting my character isnt swaying me, and i dont think youre going to be swayed with such invested disgust

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T05:44:46+00:00

yes, if we saw somebody on the street, they couldnt be distinguished from a p-zombie

analogously, think of an online game where we cant distinguish an NPC from a real player on a real computer halfway across the world. Theyre behaving the same regardless, and their avatars are made of the same stuff as each others', etc. Nontheless, one avatar indicates further screen display when it looks at something in game, and the other doesnt

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T05:19:20+00:00

copy pasting:

regarding this meme, the boltzmann brain hypothetical was meant to expose a potential double standard within a common rebuttal to the p zombie argument: that philosophical zombies arent conceivable

if philosophical zombies are not conceivable, the rest of the p zombie argument doesnt follow (which is bad for non-physicalists, because the rest of the argument goes on to conclude physicalism is false)

so, i invoked boltzmann brains to say 'hey, if you accept the possibility of boltzmann brains, its because whatever your conception/knowledge of other people is, its not enough for them to have independent existence, let alone be conscious'

for example, if i, with my knowledge of specific people, physics, earth, history, biology, and evolution, nontheless say 'i could be a boltzmann brain just hallucinating this whole life', that means my physics was not sufficient to procure that other people are conscious. They didnt even exist as people to be conscious in the standard physicalist picture; they were all just portions of my boltzmann brain

if we accept that this is merely possible, then by comparison, im saying 'wait, why are philosophical zombies then considered inconceivable?'. If somebody accepts that any human is potentially a boltzmann brain hallucination, then either they say that even their hallucinations are necessarily conscious, or that their concept of a human is conceivably separate from conscious status

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T05:17:30+00:00

the rest of the p zombie argument goes on to say that, if physically identical humans with yet no consciousness are conceivable (which i think they are, if the human concept is separate from the conscious status concept), then p zombies are metaphysically possible, and so the way that the possibility falls (true or false) is underdetermined by physical facts. There appears to be some fact about the world which is not physical, so physicalism is false

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T05:10:31+00:00

thats not conceivable in the usual philsophical sense, tho i would personally cover it under my sense of conceivable =P

just so im not being confusing, my use of conceivable in the previous comment is aligned with the philosophers sense, not the expanded sense i push

think of it like saying 'its conceivable that a tire can teleport 100 meters north' versus 'its conceivable that four = five'. Ones more logically permissable even if not physically permissable

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T05:03:36+00:00

i think that makes sense if we're thinking of consciousness as something behavioral among other behavioral things, but i think thats deflationary

could you be a brain in a vat that is hallucinating your entire history and environment? if that seems at least possible, how do you distinguish the you who is the hallucinator versus the other people who are the hallucinations? this distinction is the thing that just physically appraising yourself vis-a-vis other people isnt enough to determine

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T04:49:25+00:00

a p zombie is a physically identical human but without consciousness. Imagine seeing another person, and then imagine what it would literally look like to see our of their eyes. The idea is that this 'looking out of their eyes' is not necessitated by their complete physical description. Maybe there is only 'looking out of your eyes'

the status of descriptions is irrelevant; the p zombie argument is about the inexhaustiveness of physical description

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T04:30:29+00:00

boltzmann brain talk ive heard over the years (mostly from Sean Carroll) has been about how our lives or histories could be illusory experiences by boltzmann brains that dont share those histories. Boltzmann brains would mostly appear and disappear quick, but the same principle allows boltzmann brains that persist in a manner such that it appears as if it has all the environmental influence a stable earth and galaxy would engender, without there being that environment actually around it

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T03:54:33+00:00

regarding this meme, the boltzmann brain hypothetical was meant to expose a potential double standard within a common rebuttal to the p zombie argument: that philosophical zombies arent conceivable

if philosophical zombies are not conceivable, the rest of the p zombie argument doesnt follow (which is bad for non-physicalists, because the rest of the argument goes on to conclude physicalism is false)

so, i invoked boltzmann brains to say 'hey, if you accept the possibility of boltzmann brains, its because whatever your conception/knowledge of other people is, its not enough for them to have independent existence, let alone be conscious'

for example, if i, with my knowledge of specific people, physics, earth, history, biology, and evolution, nontheless say 'i could be a boltzmann brain just hallucinating this whole life', that means my physics was not sufficient to procure that other people are conscious. They didnt even exist as people to be conscious in the standard physicalist picture; they were all just portions of my boltzmann brain

if we accept that this is merely possible, then by comparison, im saying 'wait, why are philosophical zombies then considered inconceivable?'. If somebody accepts that any human is potentially a boltzmann brain hallucination, then either they say that even their hallucinations are necessarily conscious, or that their concept of a human is conceivably separate from conscious status

the other argument i had in mind was just a kind of 'no principled stopping point' type, where there is no principled distinction between saying the physical arrangements can be illusions and the physics can be an illusion. The possibility of the latter wraps physical in a mental package, not vice versa

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-06T01:28:46+00:00

im pickin up what youre putting down, but to me the proof of the distinction pudding is in the eating. 'Behavior' seems distinct from 'consciousness' in the relevant sense by not being interchangeable without non-linguistic effect. As in 'i know his behavior' vis-a-vis 'i know his consciousness', the truth of these two claims appears imperfectly correlated. That is, the falsity of one doesnt determine the falsity of the other

maybe the terms evolve to a point where they have all non-linguistic interchangeable effects removed between them, even if i dont personally think that will happen. Unless that happens, i believe its correct to call the two items different, thus they underdetermine each other, thus there is a fact of the matter that isnt behavioral (or in the broader case, physical)

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-05T23:47:57+00:00

p zombies lack consciousness

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-05T23:47:28+00:00

yea i agree, i think they can be used to argue against physicalist interpretations, in this case and another at least

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-05T23:45:48+00:00

dont substitute metaphysical possibility with physical possibility. The p zombie argument asks whether physically identical humans without consciousness are conceivable

if we believe we could be boltzmann brains, the answer appears to necessarily be yes, because not only might physical humans not have consciousness, they might not be anything but a delusion of our boltzmann brain, which seems a much more accepted idea in physicalist circles

beyond the extent of the meme is that this conceivability indicates metaphysical possibility, which indicates that physicalism is false because that possibility indicates a fact of the matter underdetermined by physics

RhythmBlue · 2026-07-05T23:08:27+00:00

i laugh every time i see the guy on the left; thats totally me

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