Zombies
Updated 2026-09-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
A philosophical zombie is a creature imagined to clarify consciousness and its relation to the physical world: it is identical to us in every physical respect, yet has no conscious experience, so that there is nothing it is like to be it; its behavior is indistinguishable from ours, and it even discourses about consciousness. If such a being is conceivable, consciousness appears to be something beyond the physical facts.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Conceivability test: check whether a being physically identical yet lacking consciousness can be imagined without contradiction. - Inference audit: ask whether conceivability licenses a conclusion about possibility, to block an illicit leap. - Explanatory gap: use the case to see what remains between physical description and phenomenal experience.
Anchor fast decisions
The argument's force comes from the inference from conceivability to possibility: if a being physically identical to us but without consciousness can be conceived without contradiction, consciousness seems not to be fixed by the physical facts. Physicalists reply that the inference is unreliable, and that the conceivability reflects only the cognitive independence of phenomenal concepts from physical concepts.
MINIMUM ACTION
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Source support: Explicit
- plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/verified
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