"The larger questions raised by the existence, or non-existence,
of zombies speaks to the very essence of our understanding of
consciousness. In Haitian voodoo imaginary a zombie is revived
without retaining his soul, or his self-consciousness, or indeed,
his mind. But, leaving aside the religious-laden issue of whether
or not one has a soul, death is the end of life and consciousness.
The voodoo zombie is not in fact then a revived dead person, but a
living person who has been brain-damaged. What is interesting is
the interest that the Haitian model has sparked in another kind of
zombie, a theoretical model, known as the philosophical zombie, or
p-zombie. A p-zombie is a human body without consciousness that
would nevertheless behave like a human body with consciousness. To
some this constitutes a contradictory notion and thus an impossible
conception. If it behaves like a person and is indistinguishable
from a person, then it is a person (6). Others argue that a
p-zombie would be distinguishable from a person even though
indistinguishable from a conscious person, because it is stipulated
that it is not conscious even though it is indistinguishable from a
conscious being (7). (
. At the heart of this
debate is the question, what is consciousness? Can consciousness be
reduced to a set of materialistic functions? Functionalism implies
that life is independent of its material substrate. "Life is
ascribed to an emergent property of biochemical processes and
functional activities. The contrary viewpoint is Vitalism, which
contends that functional descriptions fail to consider or explain
an "essential unitary one-ness," which they describe variously as
"life force," "élan vital," or "life energy." Therefore,
consciousness is more than brain processes and neurological
functions and no adequate account of consciousness will ever be
produced that is "reductionist," i.e., completely materialistic
(9).
Important metaphysical and ethical issues hinge on whether or not
there can be p-zombies. For instance, can machines be conscious? If
we create a machine that is indistinguishable from a human being,
would our artificial creation be a "person" with all the rights and
duties of natural persons? It is possible to conceive of a machine
which "perceives" without being aware of perceiving. In fact, such
machines already exist: motion detectors, touch screens, tape
recorders, smoke alarms, certain robots. An android which could
process visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory input but which
would lack self-consciousness, i.e., would not be aware of
perceiving anything, is conceivable. We can even conceive of such
machines resembling humans in the flesh. How would we distinguish
such automata from persons? The same way we do now: by the
imperfect and fallible methods of conversation and observation.
Self-consciousness or the lack of it would ultimately distinguish
an automaton from a person. "Visual perception" by a motion
detector is unlike visual perception by a person just because of
the difference in awareness of perception, i.e.,
self-consciousness. A smoke detector might "smell" certain
chemicals, but it does not process odors the way a person does.
And, just how exactly can we know if anyone, beside ourselves is
truly self-aware, truly conscious? The truth is that we can't know
for sure; we must take each other's word for it. If you tell me you
are conscious, I have to believe you, even if you have formerly
been my toaster.
Personally, I don't believe that there are such things as zombies,
or p-zombies, (by their respective definitions) not because the
evidence is overwhelming but because in the absence of overwhelming
evidence, not believing is the more ethical standpoint. In light of
a human history that has ever been quick to jump to exclusion, to
believe that something that looks like a person and acts like a
person is somehow not a person is a dangerous proposition. It is
this very notion that fostered and perpetuated the practice of
slavery. So when I think about the ethical questions regarding how
we should treat androids which are behaviorally indistinguishable
from human beings, or zombies for that matter, I think that if we
stipulate that such creatures are persons with rights, then they
will be persons; otherwise, they will not be persons. The concept
of personhood, is not a matter of discovery, but of
stipulation"
