The philosophical zombie is incoherent by analogy: claiming zombie electrons — particles that behave identically to real electrons but are not 'actually' electrons — makes no sense, because 'electron' just names observable properties.

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

• The functionalist denies the coherence of philosophical zombies: experience, insofar as it has any determinable character, is itself a functional propertyclaim0.798
  Core argument against essentialism: there is no property of consciousness over and above its functional manifestations
• Zombies (unconscious physical duplicates of humans) would have a very different moral status from Vulcans, possibly none.claim0.761
  A challenge for views that make autonomy sufficient for moral standing.
• Much of what is written by philosophers of science is either false or incomplete because they do not take account of the implications of Schrödinger's ideas for chemistry and biology.claim0.746
  Sloman's broad methodological critique of philosophy of science.
• Terence Deacon's 'Incomplete Nature' seems not to have understood the points about ratchets and multi-stability, or perhaps re-invented them with extraordinarily obscure terminology.claim0.744
  Sloman's harsh criticism of Deacon's philosophy.
• TAME does not claim that mind is inevitably baked in regardless of physical implementation; causal structure and cybernetic properties are key determinants.claim0.743
  Distinguishes TAME from panpsychist views; emphasizes role of organization.
• My physics students don't understand it either. That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does ... The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment.quote0.739
  Feynman's famous admission of the conceptual difficulty in quantum mechanics, used to introduce the need for a wholeness-based interpretation.
• Verbal reports, homology, and phylogenetic provenance are insufficient to determine sentience in unconventional agents.claim0.739
  Core claim: Turing test and brain homology fail for synthetic, AI, and radically non-human agents; new frameworks required.
• Selves are not fixed permanent agents; the substrate of memory, preferences, and rewards is plastic and can remodel during the agent's lifetime.claim0.739
  Central claim that cognitive Selves change in real-time, supported by examples of metamorphosis and regeneration.