The Information Argument
You may want to read these posts before continuing:
- Ineffability of Qualia
- What is Sentience?
- The Dualist’s Predicament
- Refuting Physicalism Subjectively
Imagine a universe with two rooms, called room0 and room1. In each room, there is a note lying face-down on the floor. These rooms are similar, but room0′s note has ’0′ written on it, and room1′s note has ’1′ written on it, although this difference is not visible until the note is turned over.
Also imagine that I have a doppelganger. Our physical bodies are identical to the quark.
I am now assigned randomly to one of the two rooms and he to the other.
Since we are doppelgangers, it makes no difference to the state of the physical universe, who was assigned to which room. Since the state of the physical universe is the same in both cases, it does not contain information about which room I was assigned to.
Yet, I can determine which room I was assigned to by walking over to the note in my room and picking it up.
If, through my subjective perspective, I have access to information (one binary digit) that is not expressed in the state of the physical universe, then where is this information coming from?
(Here is a simpler version of the argument.)