my life is absolutely pathetic and I want to die.

The human being who appears at the center of one's visual field - the human being normally identified as 'myself' - is normally assumed to be conscious. This being is normally assumed to not be a p-zombie.

But this assumption doesn't stand up to scrutiny. After all, that human being is just another experience! And whatever "has" experiences cannot itself be an experience.

Whatever 'has' experiences must transcend consciousness in the sense that it can never be an object of experience. And this rules out the possibility that humans are subjects of experience, since humans are just another experience, including the one that appears at the center of visual space (i.e. the one normally identified as 'myself').

So the human being is not the thing that is conscious. And a human being who is not conscious is a p-zombie, by definition. Thus I conclude that I, the human person at the center of visual space who is currently typing this message, must be a p-zombie.

Think of it like a dream. Most dreams feel as if they’re experienced by an embodied human person. But the embodied human person is not having the dream – it is part of the dream. And it's the same in waking life. Pretty cool, right?

/r/depression Thread