The Philosophical Zombie (P-Zombie)
A thought experiment in philosophy of mind: a being physically identical to a conscious person but with no subjective experience. Used to argue against physicalism about consciousness.
A philosophical zombie (or p-zombie) is a hypothetical being that is physically and behaviorally identical to a conscious human but has no subjective experience — no qualia, no 'inner life,' nothing it is like to be that entity. The concept was introduced by Robert Kirk in his 1974 papers 'Sentience and Behaviour' and 'Zombies v. Materialists,' though a precursor ('imitation man') appeared in Keith Campbell's *Body and Mind* (1970). David Chalmers popularized the concept in *The Conscious Mind* (1996), making it central to the hard problem of consciousness. Chalmers's argument: if p-zombies are logically conceivable (even if not physically possible), then consciousness cannot be fully explained by physical properties alone — it must be a 'further fact' beyond the physical. This challenges physicalism, the dominant view in philosophy of mind that everything is physical. Critics respond in several ways: Daniel Dennett argues p-zombies are not genuinely conceivable (we only think we can imagine them because we underestimate what consciousness requires). Others argue that conceivability does not entail metaphysical possibility. The p-zombie thought experiment remains central to debates about consciousness, qualia, and the mind-body problem.