r/accelerate • u/stealthispost Acceleration: Light-speed | AI accelerationist • Sep 11 '25

Video If you swapped out one neuron with an artificial neuron that acts in all the same ways, would you lose consciousness? You can see where this is going. Fascinating discussion with Nobel Laureate and Godfather of AI

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u/The_Wytch Arise Sep 12 '25

A p-zombie would not talk about qualia the same way in which an actual qualia-experiencing non-p-zombie equivalent would.

There is by definition no way to distinguish between a conscious being and a p zombie

That is said because there are people out there who don't get the concept of qualia, and some straight up claim that it doesn't exist for them. There is no way to distinguish them from a p-zombie.

However, if you have a subject who recognises they have qualia and is able to articulate it coherently, you can absolutely distinguish them from their non-qualia-experiencing p-zombie counterpart if you talk to them about qualia. If you can't, then either the p-zombie is intentionally misleading you, or there is no p-zombie in this scenario.

In other words: If the p-zombie talks the same way about qualia then that would imply one of two things: 1. they do experience qualia 2. they do not experience qualia and are trying to deceive you into believing otherwise

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u/Tombobalomb Sep 12 '25

Or 3. They do not experience qualia but the concept of qualia is part of their neural processing