Abstract

Philosophical zombies—beings physically identical to us, with every neuron firing just so, yet devoid of consciousness—have posed a philosophical issue for proponents of physicalism since David Chalmers deployed them in his well-known Zombie Argument. The pitch is this: if you can conceive of a zombie without logical contradiction, consciousness must be more than physical, and materialism collapses. It’s a seemingly slick argument, but I want to outline why it amounts to little more than begging the question. Zombies aren’t necessarily conceivable—not when we examine what we’re actually talking about. To make the case, I’ll lean on a new tool, the Principle of Contradiction of Referents (PCR), and a playful analogy about “Schwales” and “cirtons.”