Zombies

From Yudkowsky’s latest post:

…

COLONEL TODD: It’s worse than I imagined.

CAPTAIN MUDD: How can you tell, exactly?

COLONEL TODD: I’ve never seen anything so brutally ordinary.

A lab-coated SCIENTIST stands up at the foot of the table.

SCIENTIST: The zombie disease eliminates consciousness without changing the brain in any way. We’ve been trying to understand how the disease is transmitted. Our conclusion is that, since the disease attacks dual properties of ordinary matter, it must, itself, operate outside our universe. We’re dealing with an epiphenomenal virus.

GENERAL FRED: Are you sure?

SCIENTIST: As sure as we can be in the total absence of evidence.

GENERAL FRED: All right. Compile a report on every epiphenomenon ever observed. What, where, and who. I want a list of everything that hasn’t happened in the last fifty years.

CAPTAIN MUDD: If the virus is epiphenomenal, how do we know it exists?

SCIENTIST: The same way we know we’re conscious.

CAPTAIN MUDD: Oh, okay.

GENERAL FRED: Have the doctors made any progress on finding an epiphenomenal cure?

SCIENTIST: They’ve tried every placebo in the book. No dice. Everything they do has an effect.

…

A lot more here. It’s probably a good idea to read some of his earlier posts on the subject if you haven’t already, that way you get the full blast of the post.

Brian Jaress, in the comments section, puts it this way: I say Eliezer has finally dealt with the zombie issue as it deserves. It’s a silly idea that invites convoluted discussion, which makes it look sophisticated and hard to refute. I feel the same way. However this is not a problem I find is limited to this particular subject matter: Is this not in fact a big general problem when it comes to the subject of philosophy; that it is riddled with silly ideas that invite convoluted discussions, making the ideas look sophisticated and hard to refute?