Digital Drosophila: A Perfect Philosophical Zombie — And On Why Whole-Brain Emulation Fails to Resolve the Hard Problem of Consciousness

This paper offers a philosophical judgment on the latest fruit fly whole neural network emulation experiment announced in March 2026, pointing out that the experiment merely reproduces the biological neural structure and external behaviors of the fruit fly, and fails to prove that the emulated system possesses subjective conscious experience. By definition, the digital drosophila is equivalent to the philosophical zombie in the philosophy of mind. The achievements of the experiment have only addressed the "easy problems" of consciousness research, without touching on or being able to resolve the "hard problem" of consciousness at all. Far from constituting a breakthrough in understanding the essence of consciousness, the experiment further confirms that physicalism and functionalism are incapable of exhausting the core issues surrounding consciousness.