Editing Physicalism (section)

=== Argument from philosophical zombies ===
One commonly issued challenge to a priori physicalism and physicalism in general is the "conceivability argument", or [[zombie argument]].<ref>See Chalmers, 2009.</ref> The conceivability argument runs roughly as follows:

# According to physicalism, everything in our world (including consciousness) is physical.
# Thus, if physicalism is true, a metaphysically possible world in which all physical facts are the same as in the actual world contains everything that exists in the actual world. In particular, conscious experience exists in such a world.
# We can conceive of a world physically indistinguishable from our world but in which there is no consciousness (a zombie world). From this it follows that such a world is metaphysically possible.
# Therefore, physicalism is false. (This [[Logical consequence|follows from]] (2) and (3) by ''[[modus tollens]]''.)<ref>See Chalmers, 2009</ref>

The possibility of philosophical zombies (p-zombies) entails that mental states do not supervene upon physical states, and thus that physicalism is false. Australian philosopher [[David Chalmers]] argues that the conceivability of a zombie entails a metaphysical possibility.<ref>{{cite book |author=Chalmers, David |title=The Conscious Mind |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996 |location=Oxford, England}}</ref> 

==== Physicalist response ====
[[Galen Strawson]] argues that it is impossible to establish the conceivability of zombies, so the argument, lacking its first premise, fails.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Strawson |first1=Galen |author-link1=Galen Strawson |title=Towards a Science of Consciousness III |date=1999 |editor1-last=Hameroff |editor1-first=S. |editor2-last=Kaszniak |editor2-first=A. |editor3-last=Chalmers |editor3-first=D.}}</ref>

[[Daniel Dennett]] argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition".<ref name="Dennett1991">{{cite book |last=Dennett |first=Daniel C. |url=https://archive.org/details/consciousnessexp00denn |title=Consciousness Explained |publisher=Little, Brown and Co. |year=1991 |isbn=0-316-18065-3 |location=Boston, Toronto, London}}</ref><ref name="Dennett1995">{{cite book |last=Dennett |first=Daniel C. |url=https://archive.org/details/darwinsdangerous0000denn |title=Darwin's Dangerous Idea |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1995 |isbn=0-684-82471-X |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/darwinsdangerous0000denn/page/322 322] |url-access=registration}}</ref> He coined the term "zimboes"—p-zombies that have [[Second-order logic|second-order beliefs]]—in arguing that p-zombies are incoherent:<ref>Dennett 1995; 1999</ref> "Zimboes think<sup>Z</sup> they are conscious, think<sup>Z</sup> they have qualia, think<sup>Z</sup> they suffer pains—they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!"<ref name="Dennett1995" /> In ''The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies'' (1995), Dennett compares consciousness to [[health]].

{{Quotation|Supposing that by an act of stipulative imagination you can remove consciousness while leaving all cognitive systems intact—a quite standard but entirely bogus feat of imagination—is like supposing that by an act of stipulative imagination, you can remove health while leaving all bodily functions and powers intact. … Health isn't that sort of thing, and neither is consciousness.}}[[Michael P. Lynch|Michael Lynch]] argues that the zombie conceivability argument forces us to either question whether we actually have consciousness or accept that zombies are impossible. If zombies falsely believe they are conscious, how can we be sure we are not zombies? We may believe we have conscious mental states when in fact we merely hold a false belief. Lynch thinks denying the possibility of zombies is more reasonable than questioning our own consciousness.<ref>Lynch, Michael P. (2006). Zombies and the case of the phenomenal pickpocket. Synthese 149 (1):37-58.</ref>

[[Daniel Stoljar]] has proposed what he calls "the [[phenomenal concept strategy]]".<ref>See Stoljar, 2005</ref> Roughly, the phenomenal concept strategy attempts to show that only the ''concept'' of consciousness—not the ''property''—is in some way "special" or [[sui generis]].<ref>cf. Stoljar, 2005</ref>