The Conceivability of Consciousness Kirk’s and Chalmers’s Zombie Thought Experiments

In this paper we will discuss Zombie TE (thought experiments)* from (e.g.) Robert Kirk and David Chalmers. On rhetorical analyses there appear three possible fallacies, popular science fallacy, objectivist fallacy and straw man which are restorable to some extent. On surface analyses of Kirk’s Zombie Replica we discover one more TE, Zulliver, an alternate of Brain-in-a-Vat (BIV). On deep analysis as by Kirk himself in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy it is a Conceivability Argument that could be considered basic to TE in consciousness studies. Because of complexity and modal structure of Conceivability Argument we discuss a nonmodal, non-TE example as inverted spectrum (ST1) that appears acceptable to skeptics as W.V. Quine.
Chalmers proposes his global Zombie World TE as an argument from failure of logical supervenience of the mental on the physical. Chalmers’s Anti-materialism Modal Argument (AMMA) appears on deep analyses with help of modal logic an ontological modus tollens falsifying materialism.
As nonmodal alternate argument (ST2) we next discuss Saul Kripke’s Pain ≠ (◻) C fibers Firing. It is itself not a TE but as according to Chalmers most essentially based on related Divine Creation TE by Kripke, which Kripke interpretation has received less attention than merited.
Lastly, we discuss a non-TE example of phantom pain as mentioned by Kripke (a/o) which appears acceptable to Daniel Dennett who even accepts René Descartes’s metaphorical explanation of the bell-pull, although Dennett maintains it is only an example of a relatively ‘thin hallucination.
We end the paper with some suggestions of further research as based upon Chalmers’s catalogue of conscious experiences.*

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.