I wrote several years ago about the classic "
Stomach in a Jar" problem that has vexed philosophers for decades. I write today about the equally complex Philosophical Zombie Couch problem, which has fascinated philosophers since Keith Campbell and Robert Kirk introduced the idea in the early 1970s, and David Chalmers popularized it in the mid 1990s. Many of you will not be familiar with the problem, so let me lay it out simply to start out with.
You could summarize the argument with a single premise: We can all imagine an object with all the properties of a couch, but which does not contain couchishness.
