In philosophy of mind, a philosophical zombie is a hypothetical entity that exhibits intelligent behavior without experiencing phenomenal consciousness

Overview Debates Related claims Topics

Joscha Bach and Hikari Sorensen co-authored a paper modeling the mind as generating two distinct domains: external world representations and abstract ideas

Anil Seth advocates biological naturalism, positing that consciousness requires the specific physical and causal substrate of biological living organisms

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's mill thought experiment asserts that mechanical interactions of physical parts cannot explain perception

Aristotle's treatise De Anima defines the soul as a mortal causal pattern bound to the physical body

Aristotle categorized living souls into three hierarchical divisions: vegetative souls in plants, sensate souls in animals, and rational souls in humans

Philosopher Paul Thagard published a 2022 paper arguing that physical energy requirements undermine functionalist substrate independence

Functionalism defines an entity by its causal relations, operational mappings, and environmental interactions rather than by an internal essence

Descartes proposed intuitive dualism, the idea that the mind is fundamentally separate from the physical body

Human consciousness and experience are substrate-independent and could be implemented on silicon hardware

The 'hard problem of consciousness' is not an unsolvable metaphysical problem

There is no metaphysical separation between consciousness and the physical, or between mind and body

Consciousness, soul, spirit, and body are different languages for talking about the same phenomena

The term 'consciousness' is a modern, more scientific-sounding word for what was traditionally called the 'soul'

Describing a person in terms of their soul or consciousness is using a different, appropriate language, not referring to a separate substance from their body

Computer scientist David Galernter has written articles arguing against the idea that consciousness does not exist

One school of philosophy of mind posits that humans are machines without free will, programmed by their genes

Most scientific theories of consciousness are functionalist, defining consciousness by the functions it performs

Aldous Huxley described the brain as a 'reducing valve' that filters a larger field of consciousness down to what is necessary for survival

Philosopher Thomas Nagel proposed that if it is "like anything" to be a creature, then that creature is conscious

Filter theories of consciousness, from thinkers like Henri Bergson and Aldous Huxley, posit that consciousness is a field existing outside the brain