Sean Carroll

But the true zombie thought experiment –

says that you're imagining a physical system that behaves literally in every way the same way as a human being.

And that includes the behavior of the atoms and neurons in their bodies, right?

That's part of behavior.

The whole point of the zombie thought experiment was not simply to say, can you mimic speech and output from a conscious agent without consciousness going on inside?

is to say, can you have exactly the same physical behavior at all scales and still not have conscious behavior?

And so as a physicalist, someone who thinks that consciousness is emergent, my answer to that is clearly no, you simply can't.

It is inconceivable that that could happen because consciousness is a label that we put on certain physical behaviors and that's all part of the emergence story.

So strictly speaking, an AI that is not thinking in the same way as a human being would not count as a philosophical zombie.

But again, I do think that there's very interesting questions to be asked about what are the requirements for the inner life of the AI before we start treating it as conscious.

And again, as I've said, I don't think that we're close to that, but we might be close sooner than we think.

So it's something that's very important to consider.

have strong ideas about and really think them through carefully.

One Armed Wolf says, Mindscape has become an important part of my life.

My question is, what are your long-term plans for the podcast?

Do you have a number of episodes you'd like to hit, or is it more freeform?

Do you ever think about the end of Mindscape?

And if you plan to go on forever, that's fine too.

Thank you.

I'm glad that it's an important part of your life.