Refuting Physicalism Subjectively

(The content that used to be on this page has been simplified. The original argument is linked at the end of the page.)

You may want to read these posts before continuing:

1. Ineffability of Qualia
2. What is Sentience?
3. The Dualist’s Predicament

 

In the universe, there is a red room and a blue room. I am randomly assigned to either the red room or the blue room, and a copy* of my body is placed in the other room. Since I can only be in one room or the other – I cannot be two people having two different experiences at the same time – there must be two possible states. Yet, according to physicalism, there are not, for both physical states** are the same.

 

Footnotes (ignore if you don’t need them):

* I call it “a copy” for brevity, but strictly speaking it is “a doppelganger with a brain pre-encoded to the state that mine would have been in, had I been placed in that room.”

** Note: “both (physical universe) states”, NOT “both rooms” (or even “both people“).

(If you prefer it, try this version of the argument.)

 

conscious experience, dualism, objectivity, philosophy of the mind, physicalism, sentience, subjectivity

Philosophy