The zombie problem is a variation on the `other minds' problem, but I hope to show that it is not an inactive variation. It offers, I think, a vivid way of conceptualizing the philosophical questions about consciousness. Suppose there is a world much like our own, except for one detail: the people of this world are unfeeling. They engage in complex behaviors very similar to ours, including speech, but these behaviors are not accompanied by …showed first 75 words of 1454 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1454 total…z] at all to zombies, because the idea of `internally seen' readouts has no zombie analogue or purpose. [4] Philosophers - human, earthbound philosophers - have argued that the other mind problem cannot be solved except by analogy, and that there is no empirical content to the notion of a zombie. That is, they argue that because there is no behavioral (and therefore observable) `mark of zombiehood', it follows that the concept has no real content.