The Zombie Problem

The zombie problem is a variation on the `other minds' problem, but I hope to show that it is not an inactive variation. It offers, I think, a vivid way of conceptualizing the philosophical questions about consciousness. Suppose there is a world much like our own, except for one detail: the people of this world are unfeeling. They engage in complex behaviors very similar to ours, including speech, but these behaviors are not accompanied by …

…z] at all to zombies, because the idea of `internally seen' readouts has no zombie analogue or purpose. [4] Philosophers - human, earthbound philosophers - have argued that the other mind problem cannot be solved except by analogy, and that there is no empirical content to the notion of a zombie. That is, they argue that because there is no behavioral (and therefore observable) `mark of zombiehood', it follows that the concept has no real content.