Here it is at last, the solution to the problem of evil – the zombie theodicy. I’m sure you’ll all agree that this solution eliminates any possible problems that evil could pose for existence of an all-good, all-powerful God. Zombies – they aren’t just for philosophy of mind anymore!
And if you’re still not clear on the whole “philosophical zombie” thing, you can take a quick look here. Or check out a more detailed discussion here. Enjoy!
Pretty clever.
My concern is that being turned into a zombie, however temporarily, is itself a “bad thing” that is happening to you. I also wonder how this argument applies to long-term, but temporary, ailments. Depression over a dead loved one, etc.
Also, yay zombies.
No fair, you are excessivly verbose and get away with it. Whenever I do that, like whenever something horrible happens and i tell people “I dont care, they arent really people to me” i get slapped.
Well, I’m stumped — that’s way better than the best explanation I’d previously heard. I’m already a theist, so I can’t convert — or is double-conversion possible?
Now, if there were a philosophical pirate concept, or a philosophical ninja… Imagine philosophical zombie pirates! Talk about the ULTIMATE proof of the existence of God: the extension of Anselm’s ontological argument into the dimension of PURE AWESOMENESS.
Seriously, this is one of the best comics (or series) in a while. Well done.
You made us suffer for a while, but after the suffering was over, you proved your fundamental goodness.
I don’t see how such a zombie could be logically impossible. Physically maybe.
Nice try, it’s a possible answer to the LPoE, hah.
[...] From Chaospet, the best solution ever to the traditional problem of evil: The Zombie Solution: [...]
I laughed out loud at the first panel. But I thought the argument was going to be one of those beautiful misinterpretations of Dennett–since we’re all actually philosophical zombies, our pain and suffering isn’t *real* pain and suffering, and so God’s not culpable. But this line’s pretty good stuff too.
Ahaha! Great comic. Saw a similar one over here: http://www.principiacomica.com/archive/29.html
Seems like everyone’s jumping on the zombie bandwagon.
Well that does explain why i’m in a tight spot i always lust for brains. It made visits to the dentist akward
But also your Philosophy-fu is great oh mighty chaospet. I haven’t seen such a beautifully crafted since i gave up reading plantinga
@Abeo – Even if being temporarily zombified is itself an evil, it’s certainly much less an evil than suffering a famine or a horrid disease, etc. And so with zombification added the traditional theodicies (like virtue building, etc) are much more plausible than they would be otherwise.
@chaos872 – The trick is to say “I don’t care, they’re zombies”. I’m not sure what reaction you’ll get, but it probably won’t be slapping.
@Wm – Thank you! Philosophical zombie pirates has serious potential…
@Emil – Frankly I don’t find it plausible that they’re logically impossible, but some other people do. In fact some (like Dennett) argue that they aren’t even really conceivable. See here in the Stanford article I linked to before.
@Mark – I’m very wary of misconstruing Dennett in any way after the last time. I don’t want the blood of any more dead puppies on my hands.
@Marcus – Nice. This seems like an interesting instance of synchronicity. Which of course is itself also explained by zombies.
@Elf – That is high praise indeed, thank you! Whatever else one may think of Plantinga, he is undeniably clever.
I disagree plantinga is not clever either that or he’s much too clever
Thanks, your reply to my post gave me an idea.
What about people who are suffering from horrible diseases or starvation, who also do bad things to other people? If they have been zombified then god has directly replaced you with something that will be hurting others. God is causing suffering.
Of course, if the targets are zombies nobody is actually suffering but it seems a bit contrary to his message to have god-zombies hurting other god-zombies.
Chaospet,
I know. I read the link. Thereafter I started a discussion about the zombie argument against physicialism at FRDB.org — the world’s largest online philosophy board. IIRC the thread is called “Zombies are a problem for physicialism” in the philosophy category.
I think that zombies are pretty conceivable and they are logically possible. I don’t think their logical possibility is a problem for physicalism. If they were physically possible, then it would be a problem, but I think they are not.
Oops, physicalism, not physicialism. I don’t know why I wrote that. Silly.
Hey Emil,
I found the thread, haven’t had a chance to read through it all yet but it looks interesting so far.
Anyway here (in brief) is my understanding of why zombies are a problem for physicalism. Physicalism (at the very minimum) is committed to the claim that all facts supervene on physical facts – if two states of affairs/worlds/etc are physically identical, then they must be identical in all other respects. Yet if zombies are logically possible then this supervenience thesis is denied. To say that zombies are logically possible is to say that two worlds can share all of the same physical properties and yet possess different mental properties, and so even this minimal sense of physicalism cannot be true.
Chaospet,
I see what you mean but I disagree.
I don’t see physicalists as making claims about other worlds. I see them only as making the claim that physicalism is true in the actual world. There is, in my view, a possible world where dualism is true. There is also, in my view again, a possible world where there is a phil. zombie so that dualism is true in that world. I don’t understand why this would imply that physicalism in the actual world is false.
About the thread. It seems that there is a highly knowledgeable (substance?) dualist on the forum. Interesting. The forum is formerly known as the IIDB–Internet Infidels Discussion Board. So the forum is mostly populated by atheists/sceptics.
[...] finally (pardon the self-indulgence please), here is a recent one of my own in which I propose a new zombie based [...]
This reference describes what the killer zombies have been doing to the entire planet for over 1500 years.
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com
This is incredibly awesome.
There is one problem with the temporary zombies because pain only exists as the memory of pain. It is like when you sleep and don’t dream, you still dream you just don’t remember and it therefore never happened to you.
“It is like when you sleep and don’t dream, you still dream you just don’t remember and it therefore never happened to you.”
I feel like there just might be a couple of contradictions hidden in there somewhere.
“I feel like there just might be a couple of contradictions hidden in there somewhere.”
Oooh ooh ooooh! I know the answer, professor!!! Call on me!!!
Dialethism — we can live with the contradictions!
or maybe Chaospet is a philosophical zombie — he “feels” like there are a couple of contradictions, but because he’s not actually conscious, he doesn’t actually experience any proposition with contradictions, and therefore his observations matter not at all to us.
Now, some will say that chaospet is clearly a vampire rather than a zombie, but I answer, “where’s your imagination — vampire zombies are definitely cooler than mere vampires, and therefore (by Anselm’s island thought experiment) must clearly exist!”
Or maybe he’s a zombie who likes wearing a black cape while eating brains. That’s possible too.
-Wm
But vampires have no mirror image! Thus they are not existent.
I can’t see how becoming a zombie is a bad thing at all, since there’s no cognitive difference between a zombie and me. Although it also wouldn’t solve the problem of evil, since the zombie would still be suffering – there just wouldn’t be anything it is like for that zombie to be suffering.
Azraphon,
Suffering is often thought of as a mental event. If there are no mental events, then there is no suffering either. If someone is a zombie, then there cannot be any mental event associated with that person (at least as long as he is a zombie). Thus, that person cannot suffer.
Azraphon: Yup, what Emil said. It is hard to see in what meaningful sense the zombie can be said to be suffering if there is nothing it is like to be the zombie. When you remove any subjective awareness of the “suffering”, you remove suffering in any sense that would be incompatible with the existence of a loving, compassionate God.
[...] From Chaospet, the best solution ever to the traditional problem of evil: The Zombie Solution: [...]