It Only Seems as if Zombies are Logically Possible, or How Consciousness Hides the Truth of Materialism: A Critical Review of The Conscious Mind

Abstract

When Charles Darwin died in April 1882, he left behind a world changed forever. Because of his writings, most notably, of course, The Origin of Species, by 1882, evolution was an almost universally acknowledged fact. What remained in dispute, however, was how evolution occurred. So, because of Darwin’s work, everyone accepted that new species emerge over time, yet few agreed with him that it was natural selection that powered the change, as Darwin hypothesized. Chalmers’s book, The Conscious Mind, reminds me of The Origin of Species. I have talked to many people about The Conscious Mind and watched many philosophy students read it, and, after they are done, they all take consciousness more seriously than they did before, and they are all struck by its deep mystery, yet few accept Chalmers’s specific theory of consciousness and his explanation of its odd nature. Chalmers has written an exciting and fascinating book. And I, for one, hope that, because of it, consciousness in all its paradoxical glory will once more hold center stage in a robust philosophy of mind and metaphysics. The book is good enough that this is a reasonable hope. However, I fear that the analogy with Darwin’s book will not be sustained. The theory of natural selection unveiled in The Origin of Species was eventually vindicated, and, nowadays, we regard Darwin’s theory of natural selection as largely correct. But I doubt that the same fate awaits Chalmers’s positive theory of consciousness. So, while Chalmers’s book will be a source of great philosophy and provoke dozens of papers, I think at the end of the day his contribution will be to have shown us the problem of consciousness in all its profundity, yet consciousness will remain an unsolved problem.