The p-Zombie and 'p-Zombie: the Scandal of an Incomplete Survey.

The philosophical or p-Zombie is a thought experiment designed to show that there is a soul, spirit or something which is not material, not just a 'product' of the brain. This is clearly daft.

The 'p-Zombie, or 'Pataphysical Zombie, is an instance of 'Pataphysics devised to show nothing of the sort.

Last year, a huge survey was carried out among 3226 philosophers to determine their attitudes to a number of philosophical questions, amongst which was the question of the p-Zombie.

http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl?affil=All+respondents&areas0=0&areas_max=1&grain=medium

It is interesting, if not appalling, to note that of the possible boxes to tick, the most important (to 'Pataphysicists) response was absent. One might ask why this was.

Here is the relevant section, with responses as absolute numbers and percentages.

(whether philosophical zombies are conceivable and/or metaphysically possible):

• Accept or lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible 1139 / 3226 (35.3%)
• Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible 777 / 3226 (24%)
• Accept or lean toward: inconceivable 607 / 3226 (18.8%)
• Insufficiently familiar with the issue 234 / 3226 (7.2%)
• Agnostic/undecided 156 / 3226 (4.8%)
• The question is too unclear to answer 87 / 3226 (2.6%)
• Skip 64 / 3226 (1.9%)
• There is no fact of the matter 58 / 3226 (1.7%)
• Reject all 37 / 3226 (1.1%)
• Other 27 / 3226 (0.8%)
• Accept another alternative 19 / 3226 (0.5%)
• Reject one, undecided between others 11 / 3226 (0.3%)
• Accept an intermediate view 6 / 3226 (0.1%)
• Accept more than one 4 / 3226 (0.1%)

The absent response — and the 'Pataphysically correct one — was of course 'metaphysically possible but not conceivable'.
(This is printed in magenta because the 'colour' magenta doesn't exist either - there is no magenta in the spectrum of visible light. It needs the superimposition of two separate wavelengths of light: red and blue…)

{The magenta in the colour bars in the previous posting comes from a printable colour space, not the spectrum of light. If you don't believe me, have a look at a prism. No magenta.}