argumate:

rowan-canyon:

argumate:

If you want to be a dick, hang around philosophers and claim not to have qualia.

“What is this consciousness thing you keep rabbiting on about?”

“Do I have it? How can I tell?”

cackling at the devilishness of this post

also cackling at the dearth of pertinent google results for “how can i tell if i have qualia”

P-Zombies don’t have qualia, but they suffer a strange affliction that compels them to insist that they do.

In one of Steven Pinker’s books (I think it was How The Mind Works) he tells an anecdote about how a friend once “confessed” to him that he was actually a p-zombie.  (”I lost all conscious experience after a head injury in childhood.”)  Pinker said he thought it was a joke, but of course there was no way to know for sure.

(via argumate)