Justin Sytsma and Adam Arico discuss phenomenal consciousness, folk intuitions, and experimental philosophy more generally for the latest episode of Philosophy TV. They focus on some issues that are debated in Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy (2014) which was edited by Edouard Machery and Elizabeth O'Neill. Here is the overview of their discussion:
Sytsma and Arico begin with an overview of empirical investigations of folk intuitions about phenomenal consciousness. Then (15:03) they consider the landmark 2010 study by Sytsma and Machery, which produced evidence that the folk are largely willing to ascribe perceptual experience (“seeing red”) to a simple robot, but unwilling to ascribe bodily sensation (“feeling pain”) to the robot. (Interestingly, the same study also probed philosophers’ responses, which turned out to differ from those of the folk.) After that, they discuss (20:15) whether the Agency Model developed by Arico and colleagues can adequately account for the Sytsma and Machery results, and consider a range of other interpretations and follow-up studies. They conclude (53:58) by considering possibilities for future empirical work on folk views of phenomenal
Justin and Adam do a great job stoking interest in several x-phi-related issues. So, check it out (and spread the word)!
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