Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness argues that despite the worries of explanatory pessimists, consciousness can be fully explained in “easy” scientific terms. The widespread intuition that consciousness poses a hard problem is plausibly based on how consciousness appears to us in first-person access. The book offers a debunking argument to undercut the justificatory link between the first-person appearances and our hard problem intuitions. -/- The key step in (...) the debunking argument involves the development and defense of an empirical model of first-person access: Automated Compression Theory (ACT). ACT holds that first-person access to consciousness is accomplished by automated accessing of compressed sensory information. Because of the distorting nature of this compressed access, it seems to subjects that consciousness possesses “exceptional” properties—properties leading to the hard problem—even though no such properties are present. If there are no exceptional properties to explain, then an explanation in easy terms can fully account for conscious experience. The book presents a range of empirical evidence for ACT and concludes that the burden of proof is now on the pessimists to show why we shouldn’t be optimistic about explaining consciousness. (shrink)

Several philosophers believe that with phenomenal consciousness and neurobiological properties, there will always be some kind of epistemic gap between the two that will lead to a corresponding ontological gap. In order to address those who espouse this hard line position, I will first briefly examine certain aspects of the history of scientific explanation. I will put forth a positive thesis that there is what I call a progressivism to scientific explanations in certain fields, where kinds of explanations (...) tend to advance or progress, somewhat analogous to how overall scientific theories also significantly advance or progress. Given the progressivism of kinds of explanations, I provide a new contention that adherents to the hard line view are not justified in making their relevant claims. While progressivism and its use against hard line views may seem intuitively obvious to some readers, I offer its first articulation and attempt to illustrate the novel virtues it brings to the table of the phenomenal consciousness debate. (shrink)

The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. The easy problems are easy precisely because they concern the explanation of cognitive abilities and functions. Once we have specified the neural or computational mechanism that performs the function of verbal report, for example, the bulk of our (...) work in explaining reportability is over. Baars theory of cognitive accessibility addresses many aspects of human cognition and shows promise as a theory of awareness, the functional correlate of conscious experience, but an explanation of experience itself is not on offer. The key is the conceptual point that the explanation of functions does not suffice for the explanation of experience. (shrink)

Do conceivability arguments work against physicalism if properties are causal powers? By considering three different ways of understanding causal powers and the modality associated with them, I will argue that most, if not all, physicalist powers theorists should not be concerned about the conceivability argument because its conclusion that physicalism is false does not hold in their favoured ontology. I also defend specific powers theories against some recent objections to this strategy, arguing that the conception of properties as powerful blocks (...) conceivability arguments unless a rather implausible form of emergence is true. (shrink)

Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to show that the paradigm of viewing the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness in analytic philosophy makes it a pseudo-problem rather than a ‘hard problem’. The objectives of this research included showing the reasons for the authors’ thesis, demonstrating the irreducibility of consciousness as a special layer of reality, and proposing a way to overcome these difficulties. Design/methodology/approach: In this article, the ‘hard problem’ of (...) consciousness is viewed from the standpoints of the transcendental-phenomenological and dialectical approaches and is analyzed through the prism of the principle of onto-gnoseological uncertainty. Findings: It is shown that the way of formulating the ‘hard problem’ in the analytical philosophical tradition inevitably makes it a pseudo-problem. At the same time, with the consistent realization of the principle of onto-gnoseological uncertainty, the antinomy of solutions to the problems of consciousness is eliminated, which opens up a way to a productive solution of problems related to the interpretation of consciousness both in natural sciences and in philosophy. Originality/value : This research reveals the methodological potential of applying the principle of onto-gnoseological uncertainty to the problems that arise in modern philosophy in connection with the achievements of natural sciences. (shrink)

Chalmers introduced the hard problem of consciousness as a profound gap between experience and physical concepts. Philosophical theories were based on different interpretations concerning the qualia/concept gap, such as interactive dualism (Descartes), as well as mono aspect or dual aspect monism. From a bio-psychological perspective, the gap can be explained by the different activity of two mental functions realizing a mental representation of extra-mental reality. The function of elementary sensation requires active sense organs, which create an uninterrupted (...) physical chain from extra-mental reality to the brain and reflect the present. The function of categorizing reflection no longer needs sense organs, so that the physical chain to extra-mental reality is interrupted and now reflects the past. Whereas elementary sensation is an open system, categorizing reflection remains a closed system, separated from extra-mental reality. This creates the potentiality/reality gap, since prediction from the closed to the open system remains always uncertain. Elementary sensation is associated to specific qualia for each sense organ. Chalmers also attributed qualia to thoughts, with more neutral thought qualia. Thus at the qualia level, there is also an important gap, but now between specific sense qualia and neutral thought qualia. Since all physical concepts are simultaneously linked to neutral thought qualia, the hard problem might be explained by a qualia/qualia gap instead of a qualia/concept gap. The mental function of categorizing reflection induces the change from sense qualia to thought qualia by a categorization process. The specific sense qualia mosaic of an apple is reduced to physical concepts with neutral qualia by progressive categorization first to fruit, then to food, to chemicals and finally to calories. This might explain the gap felt in the hard problem, since specific sense qualia are completely different from neutral thought qualia, so that the hard problem could already be encountered at the qualia level. Since the gap of the hard problem is due to the interaction of different mental functions, it is compatible with a philosophical monism. (shrink)

As I type these words, cognitive systems in my brain engage in visual and auditory information processing. This processing is accompanied by subjective states of consciousness, such as the auditory experience of hearing the tap-tap-tap of the keyboard and the visual experience of seeing the letters appear on the screen. How does the brain's activity generate such experiences? Why should it be accompanied by conscious experience in the first place? This is the hard problem of consciousness.

The paper begins with a restatement of Chalmers’s “hard problem of consciousness.” It is suggested that an interactionist approach is one of the possible solutions of this problem. Some fresh arguments against the identity theory and epiphenomenalism as main rivals of interactionism are developed. One of these arguments has among its corollaries a denial of local supervenience, although not of the causal closure principle. As a result of these considerations a version of “local interactionism” (compatible with (...) causal closure) is proposed. It is argued that local interactionism may offer a fruitful path for resolving the “hard problem.”. (shrink)

A precursor to the hard problem of consciousness confronts nihilism. Like physicalism, nihilism collides with the first-personal fact of what perception and action are like. Unless this problem is solved, nature’s inclusion of conscious experience will remain, as Chalmers warns the physicalist, an “unanswered question” and, as Jacobi chides the nihilist, “completely inexplicable". One advantage of Kant’s Copernican turn is to dismiss the question that imposes this hard problem. We need not ask how nature (...) is accompanied by the first-person standpoint because “I think” is an apperceptive form of thinking that must be able to accompany any cognition of nature. Kant’s formal conception of apperception worries Fichte in his Nova Methodo lectures. This conception arguably cannot exhaust the ground of experience, for it does not show why we posit objects “at all". For Fichte, it is our agency that first opens a world of objects, viz., as subjects, means, ends, and obstacles. In what follows, I argue that, for Fichte, the I poses no hard problem because it collides exclusively with nihilistic views like Spinozism, which are refuted by a properly transcendental idealist conception of apperception, according to which the first-person standpoint is the absolute ground of our experience of nature. If transcendental idealism refutes nihilism, nature is no more explicable than that there is something it is like for me to perceive and act. In Section 1, I show why Kantian apperception is necessary for possible experience. In Section 2, I reconstruct Fichte’s argument that a modified conception of apperception refutes guises of nihilism, thereby solving the hard problem of consciousness. In Section 3, I suggest that transcendental idealism undermines Chalmers’ proposed solution to and Dennett’s dismissal of this problem. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a philosophical analysis of the Hard Problem of consciousness and the implications of conceivability scenarios for current neuroscientific research. In particular, we focus on one of the most prominent neuroscientific theories of consciousness, integrated information theory (IIT). After a brief introduction on IIT, we present Chalmers’ original formulation and propose our own layered view of the hard problem, showing how 2 separate issues can be distinguished. More specifically, we argue (...) that it’s possible to disentangle a core problem of consciousness from a layered hard problem, the latter being essentially connected to Chalmers’ conceivability argument. We then assess the relation between the Hard Problem and IIT, showing how the theory resists conceivability scenarios, and how it is equipped to face up to the hard problem in its broadest acceptation. (shrink)

In this paper we try to diagnose one reason why the debate regarding the Hard Problem of consciousness inevitably leads to a stalemate: namely that the characterisation of consciousness assumed by the Hard Problem is unjustified and probably unjustifiable. Following Dennett : 4–6, 1996, Cognition 79:221–237, 2001, J Conscious Stud 19:86, 2012) and Churchland :402–408, 1996, Brainwise: studies in neurophilosophy. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002), we argue that there is in fact no non-question begging (...) argument for the claim that consciousness is a uniquely Hard Phenomenon. That is; there is no non-question begging argument for the claim that consciousness is necessarily in explicable in terms of the structure and function of mental states. Unfortunately the debate has not moved on because the majority of materialists feel the pull of the at least one of, what we call, the ‘key’ intuitions that supposedly support dualism and the existence of a Hard Phenomenon and so try to accommodate them rather than denying them. Although this a possible response to the intuitions it tends to mask the fact that there is in fact no argument for the existence of a Hard Phenomenon. So we end up participating in our own hornswoggling :402–408, 1996) and chasing our tails trying to answer a question we should in fact ignore. We have no reason to think there is a Hard Problem of consciousness because we have no reason to think the Hard Phenomenon exists. (shrink)

Recent philosophy has seen a resurgence of the realist view of sensible qualities such as colour. The view holds that experienced qualities are properties of the objects in the physical environment, not mentally instantiated properties like qualia or merely intentional, illusory ones. Some suggest that this move rids us of the explanatory gap between physical properties and the qualitative features of consciousness. Others say it just relocates the problem of qualities to physical objects in the environment, given that (...) such qualities cannot be derived from the non-qualitative properties of objects, and it does not resolve the problem of consciousness either. I argue that such an outcome is welcome: if the physical world is full of explanatory gaps, then the mind–body explanatory gap is not so special. Moreover, the explanatory gaps regarding qualities of objects are less puzzling than the brain-qualia gap. In order to counter the usual worries concerning realism about objective qualities, I introduce ‘imperfect realism’ as an alternative to colour pluralism and complex reductionism, which accommodates realism in the face of widespread perceptual error. I conclude with a discussion of how this ‘multiple-gaps view’ sits better with a naturalistic framework compared to the Galilean-Cartesian account of qualities. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a philosophical analysis of the Hard Problem of consciousness and the implications of conceivability scenarios for current neuroscientific research. In particular, we focus on one of the most prominent neuroscientific theories of consciousness, integrated information theory (IIT). After a brief introduction on IIT, we present Chalmers’ original formulation and propose our own layered view of the hard problem, showing how 2 separate issues can be distinguished. More specifically, we argue (...) that it’s possible to disentangle a core problem of consciousness from a layered hard problem, the latter being essentially connected to Chalmers’ conceivability argument. We then assess the relation between the Hard Problem and IIT, showing how the theory resists conceivability scenarios, and how it is equipped to face up to the hard problem in its broadest acceptation. (shrink)

Phenomenal consciousness presents a distinctive explanatory problem. Some regard this problem as ‘hard’, which has troubling implications for the science and metaphysics of consciousness. Some regard it as ‘easy’, which ignores the special explanatory difficulties that consciousness offers. Others are unable to decide between these two uncomfortable positions. All three camps assume that the problem of consciousness is either easy or hard. I argue against this disjunction and suggest that the (...) class='Hi'>problem may be ‘tricky’—that is, partly easy and partly hard. This possibility emerges when we recognise that consciousness raises two explanatory questions. The Consciousness Question concerns why a subject is conscious rather than unconscious. The Character Question concerns why a conscious subject’s experience has the phenomenology it has rather than some other. I explore the possibility of one or other of these explanatory challenges being hard and the other easy, and consider the dialectical ramifications this has for all sides of the debate. (shrink)

Though widely discussed, the hard problem of consciousness (‘the hard problem’ hereafter) is surprisingly difficult to pin down. In fact, one may see that not just a couple of plausible conceptions of the problem exist but rather four do. After providing some background for the hard problem, I present and clarify these four conceptions of it. I close by providing some key considerations for and against each of the four conceptions without passing (...) final judgment on any of them. Ultimately, though, we do need to come to a resolution in so far as one is possible. (shrink)

Chalmers and others have argued that physicalist microexplanation is incapable of solving the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness. This article examines whether evolutionary accounts of the mind, such as those developed by Millikan, Dretske and Flanagan, can add anything to make up for the possible short falls of more reductionist accounts. I argue that they cannot, because evolutionary accounts explain by appeal to a selectional history that only comes into the picture if consciousness can first arise due (...) to spontaneous mutation in some individual organism, and explaining this emergence of consciousness from DNA and embryology calls for precisely the kind of structurally-based supervenience account that Chalmers et al. have objected to. Not only does an evolutionary account not succeed where a reductionist account fails; the evolutionary account presupposes the possibility of a reductionist account. (shrink)

Solutions to the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness must accept conscious experience as a fundamental non-reducible phenomenon in nature, as Chalmers suggests. Chalmers proposes candidates for an acceptable theory, but I find basic flaws in these. Our own experimental investigations of brain processes causally involved in the development of conscious experience appear to meet Chalmers’ requirement. Even more directly, I had previously proposed a hypothetical ‘conscious mental field’ as an emergent property of appropriate neural activities, with the attributes (...) of integrated subjective experience and a causal ability to modulate some neural processes. This theory meets all the requirements imposed by the ‘hard problem’ and, significantly, it is experimentally testable. (shrink)

I show that the recursive structure of Leibniz's Law requires agents to perform infinitely many operations to psychologically identify the referents of phenomenal and physical concepts, even though the referents of ordinary concepts (e.g. Hesperus and Phosphorus) can be identified in a finite number of steps. The resulting problem resembles the hard problem of consciousness in the fact that it appears (and indeed is) unsolvable by anyone for whom it arises, and in the fact that it (...) invites dualist and eliminativist responses. Moreover, if this is the hard problem then we can predict that regardless of the strength of the argument for physicalism, and regardless of physicalism's truth, an ineliminable dissatisfaction is bound to accompany any physicalist theory of consciousness. Accordingly, I suggest that this is the hard problem of consciousness, and therefore that the hard problem arises from a recursively degenerate application of Leibniz's Law. (shrink)

David Chalmers calls the problem of explaining why physical processes give rise to conscious phenomenal experience the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness. He argues convincingly that no reductive account of consciousness can solve it and offers instead a non-reductive account which takes consciousness as fundamental. This paper argues that a theory of the sort Chalmers proposes cannot hope to solve the hard problem of consciousness precisely because it takes the relation between physical (...) processes and consciousness as fundamental rather than explicable. The hard problem of consciousness is, for reasons Chalmers himself gives, insoluble. Its insolubility does not, however, impugn the naturalistic respectability of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper contrasts David Chalmers’s formulation of the easy and hard problems of consciousness with a Cartesian formulation. For Chalmers, the easy problem is making progress in explaining cognitive functions and discovering how they arise from physical processes in the brain. The hard problem is accounting for why these functions are accompanied by conscious experience. For Descartes, the easy problem is knowing the essential features of conscious experience. The hard problem is verifying (...) our knowledge of the mathematical—physical world. While Chalmers admits that consciousness as subjective experience has something irreducible about it, he also presupposes that conscious experience arises from physical processes. These physical processes are posited as objectively real entities given prior to human experience. The knowledge of such entities is assumed without theoretical justification. This assumption arguably invites a reductive materialist theory of mind. I suggest that employing the Cartesian method to articulate the representational theory of knowledge provides an antidote to reductive materialism and illuminates the conceptual gap between physical processes and conscious experience. To illustrate this I contrast Dennett’s heterophenomenology with the Cartesian method of crossing the conceptual gap. I suggest that the hard problem is attaining a knowledge of the extra-mental physical objects, not of conscious experience. (shrink)

I argue that the hard problem of consciousness occurs only in very limited contexts. My argument is based on the idea of explanatory perspectivalism, according to which what we want to know about a phenomenon determines the type of explanation we use to understand it. To that effect the hard problem arises only in regard to questions such as how is it that concepts of subjective experience can refer to physical properties, but not concerning questions (...) such as what gives rise to qualia or why certain brain states have certain qualities and not others. In this sense we could for example fully explain why certain brain processes have certain subjective qualities, while we still don’t have a viable theory of concepts that explains co-referentiality of phenomenal and physical concepts. Given this limitation, the hard problem doesn’t pose a problem for the empirical study of consciousness. (shrink)

The paper attempts to establish the importance of addressing what Chalmers calls the ‘easy problems’ of consciousness, at the expense of the ‘hard problem’. One pragmatic argument and two philosophical arguments are presented to defend this approach to consciousness, and three major theories of consciousness are criticized in this light. Finally, it is shown that concentration on the easy problems does not lead to eliminativism with respect to consciousness.

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why physical processes give rise to consciousness (Chalmers 1995). Regardless of many attempts to solve the problem, there is still no commonly agreed solution. It is thus very likely that some radically new ideas are required if we are to make any progress. In this paper we turn to quantum theory to find out whether it has anything to offer in our attempts (...) to understand the place of mind and conscious experience in nature. In particular we will be focusing on the ontological interpretation of quantum theory proposed by Bohm and Hiley (1987, 1993), its further development by Hiley (Hiley and Callaghan 2012; Hiley, Dennis and de Gosson 2021), and its philosophical interpretation by Pylkkänen (2007, 2020). The ontological interpretation makes the radical proposal that quantum reality includes a new type of potential energy which contains active information. This proposal, if correct, constitutes a major change in our notion of matter. We are used to having in physics only mechanical concepts, such as position, momentum and force. Our intuition that it is not possible to understand how and why physical processes can give rise to consciousness is partly the result of our assuming that physical processes (including neurophysiological processes) are always mechanical. If, however, we are willing to change our view of physical reality by allowing non-mechanical, organic and holistic concepts such as active information to play a fundamental role, this, we argue, makes it possible to understand the relationship between physical and mental processes in a new way. It might even be a step toward solving the hard problem. (shrink)

OPINION IS DIVIDED as to whether the "qualitative characters" or "qualia" of conscious sensory experiences such as color perceptions and pain sensations genuinely constitute a major obstacle to the success or tenability of contemporary physicalist theories of mind. Do the enormous complexities of human brain activity--conceived more or less as we now conceive it--alone suffice to account for our conscious sensory experiences, and thereby show how the experiences are nothing over and above the brain activities, or must there be some (...) further kind of thing, if we are to account for the existence of our kind of consciousness? This issue, representing perhaps the most profound division of opinion in contemporary philosophy of mind, cannot possibly reach a genuine resolution in the absence of a satisfactory answer to a question which has suffered astonishing neglect in the extensive debate on this issue: What exactly is the qualitative character of a conscious sensory experience? What exactly is it about color perception, for example, that makes it so distinctive in a "qualitative" respect, allegedly making trouble for contemporary theories of mind? (shrink)

We should eventually understand how exactly first person phenomenal consciousness is generated. When we do, we should be able to enginner one for robots. This is the engineering thesis in machine consciousness.

Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers' (1995) assertion that there is a "hard problem of consciousness" worth solving in the philosophy of mind. In this paper I defend Chalmers against Dennett on this point: I argue that there is a hard problem of consciousness, that it is distinct in kind from the so-called easy problems, and that it is vital for the sake of honest and productive research in the cognitive sciences to be (...) clear about the difference. But I have my own rebuke for Chalmers on the point of explanation. Chalmers (1995, 1996) proposes to "solve" the hard problem of consciousness by positing qualia as fundamental features of the universe, alongside such ontological basics as mass and space-time. But this is an inadequate solution: to posit, I will urge, is not to explain. To bolster this view, I borrow from an account of explanation by which it must provide "epistemic satisfaction" to be considered successful (Rowlands, 2001; Campbell, 2009), and show that Chalmers' proposal fails on this account. I conclude that research in the science of consciousness cannot move forward without greater conceptual clarity in the field. (shrink)

Three decades after Chalmers named it, the ‘hard problem’ remains. I suggest a parsimonious solution. Biological dynamic systems interact according to simple rules (while the environment provides simple constraints) and thus self-organize to become a new, more complex dynamic system at the next level. This spiral repeats several times generating a hierarchy of levels. A leap to the next level is frequently creative and surprising. From ants, themselves self-organized according to physical/chemical laws, may emerge an ant colony self-organized (...) according to eusocial laws. A dynamic system need not be material. A living language (immaterial) is a complex adaptive system. Body/brain are material but the next level of complexity, a psychological dynamic system, a thought, feeling, image or ideal, is less material. From several psychological dynamic systems emerges the next level, narrative (immaterial), and from multiple narratives emerges personality. Concrete evidence explains how an early narrative emerges from body-and-brain. Evidence also shows that personality emerges from narrative. Even an objective narrative captures subjectivity since the teller’s choice of content is subjective. I argue that the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ story (movie) you are currently telling yourself (watching) is your conscious experience, ‘what it is like’ for you to be conscious. Adriana Cavarero’s arguments support this. Each level of a hierarchy of dynamic systems must necessarily be homeostatic, at that level. McDowell et al. (2023: submitted, in revision) reported evidence that a dream (a narrative) supports personality homeostatically. Perhaps the evolutionary advantage of conscious experience, also a narrative, has always been that it too supports personality homeostatically. Personality and body/brain, a chimera of symbiotic life-forms, constitute interactionist duality. (shrink)

In their joint paper entitled The Replication of the Hard Problem of Consciousness in AI and BIO-AI (Boltuc et al. Replication of the hard problem of conscious in AI and Bio- AI: An early conceptual framework 2008), Nicholas and Piotr Boltuc suggest that machines could be equipped with phenomenal consciousness, which is subjective consciousness that satisfies Chalmer’s hard problem (We will abbreviate the hard problem of consciousness as H- (...) class='Hi'>consciousness ). The claim is that if we knew the inner workings of phenomenal consciousness and could understand its’ precise operation, we could instantiate such consciousness in a machine. This claim, called the extra-strong AI thesis, is an important claim because if true it would demystify the privileged access problem of first-person consciousness and cast it as an empirical problem of science and not a fundamental question of philosophy. A core assumption of the extra-strong AI thesis is that there is no logical argument that precludes the implementation of H-consciousness in an organic or in-organic machine provided we understand its algorithm. Another way of framing this conclusion is that there is nothing special about H-consciousness as compared to any other process. That is, in the same way that we do not preclude a machine from implementing photosynthesis, we also do not preclude a machine from implementing H-consciousness. While one may be more difficult in practice, it is a problem of science and engineering, and no longer a philosophical question. I propose that Boltuc’s conclusion, while plausible and convincing, comes at a very high price; the argument given for his conclusion does not exclude any conceivable process from machine implementation. In short, if we make some assumptions about the equivalence of a rough notion of algorithm and then tie this to human understanding, all logical preconditions vanish and the argument grants that any process can be implemented in a machine. The purpose of this paper is to comment on the argument for his conclusion and offer additional properties of H-consciousness that can be used to make the conclusion falsifiable through scientific investigation rather than relying on the limits of human understanding. (shrink)

This paper uses a paradox inherent in any solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness to argue for God’s existence. The paper assumes we are “thought machines”, reading the state of a relevant physical medium and then outputting corresponding thoughts. However, the existence of such a thought machine is impossible, since it needs an infinite number of point-representing sensors to map the physical world to conscious thought. This paper shows that these sensors cannot exist, and thus thought (...) cannot come solely from our physical world. The only possible explanation is something outside, argued to be God. (shrink)

Context: Neurophenomenology, as formulated by Varela, offers an approach to the science of consciousness that seeks to get beyond the hard problem of consciousness. There is much to admire in the practical approach to the science of consciousness that neurophenomenology advocates. Problem: Even so, this article argues, the metaphysical commitments of the enterprise require a firmer foundation. The root problem is that neurophenomenology, as classically formulated by Varela, endorses a form of non-reductionism that, (...) despite its ambitions, assumes rather than dissolves the hard problem of consciousness. We expose that neurophenomenology is not a natural solution to that problem. We defend the view that whatever else neurophenomenology might achieve, it cannot close the gap between the phenomenal and the physical if there is no such gap to close. Method: Building on radical enactive and embodied approaches to cognitive science that deny that the phenomenal and the physical are metaphysically distinct, this article shows that the only way to deal properly with the hard problem is by denying the metaphysical distinction between the physical and the phenomenal that gives the hard problem life. Results: This article concludes by discussing how neurophenomenology might be reformulated under the auspices of a radically enactive and embodied account of cognition. That is, only by denying that there are two distinct phenomena - the physical and the phenomenal - can the neurophenomenological project get on with addressing its pragmatic problems of showing how neuroscientists may be guided by first-person data in their analysis of third-person experimental data, and vice versa. Implications: The topic addressed in this article is of direct value to consciousness studies in general and specifically for the project of neurophenomenology. If the neurophenomenological project is to deal with the hard problem, it must denude itself of its non-reductionist background assumption and embrace a strict identity thesis. Constructivist content: Radical enactive and embodied approaches to mind and consciousness adopt a view of consciousness as a dynamic activity - something an organism enacts in ongoing engagement with its environment. These approaches therefore share with constructivist approaches an action-based view of mind. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness is the question how subjective experience arises from brain matter. I suggest that quantum physics may be part of the answer. The simultaneous unity and complexity of subjective experience is very difficult to understand from a classical physics perspective. In contrast, quantum entanglement is naturally both complex and holistic. Building on recent remarkable progress in quantum technology and neuroscience, I propose a concrete hypothesis as a basis for further investigation, namely that subjective (...) experience is related to the dynamics of a complex entangled state of spins, which is continuously generated and updated through the exchange of photons. The proposed hypothesis raises many interesting experimental and theoretical questions in neuroscience, quantum physics, evolutionary biology, psychophysics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Rapid advances in the field of neuroimaging techniques including magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG), functional MRI (fMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), voxel based morphomentry (VBM), and optical imaging, have allowed neuroscientists to investigate neural processes in ways that have not been possible until recently. Combining these techniques with advanced analysis procedures during different conditions such as hypnosis, psychiatric and neurological conditions, subliminal stimulation, and psychotropic drugs began transforming the study of neuroscience, ushering a new paradigm that may allow neuroscientists to tackle (...) the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

The “hard problem” of consciousness is a challenge for explanations of the nature of our phenomenal experiences. Chalmers has claimed that physicalist solutions to the challenge are ill-suited due, in part, to the zombie argument against physicalism. Perry has suggested that the zombie argument begs the question against the physicalist, and presents no relevant threat to the view. Although seldom discussed in the literature, I show there is defensive merit to Perry’s “parry” of the zombie attack. The (...) success of the maneuver suggests a slight softening of the hard problem of consciousness for physicalists. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why experiences—perceptions, sensations, emotions, and moods—are brain states. My dissertation is motivated by the thought that our current understanding of the hard problem is flawed, and one of the aims of my dissertation is to address this flaw. The other aim is to lay a foundation for a monistic view of the mind-brain relation that is distinct from physicalism. Most philosophers assume that there is (...) only one hard problem since the hard problem is the problem of explaining why there is something it is like to be in a brain state. In “Puzzles of Pain”, I argue that some experiences, e.g., pains, are such that, when we have them, we feel a certain way, while other experiences, e.g., color experiences, are such that, when we have them, something seems a certain way. This suggests that there are two hard problems, one associated with each type of experience. These problems are the subjects of my other papers. In “Knowing What Pain Is”, I argue that the hard problem for pain is reconciling our awareness and knowledge of pain with pain being a brain state. I argue that a reconciliation can’t be achieved since what we learn about pain via our awareness is that it is sui generis. In “Does Transparency Solve the Mind-Body Problem?”, I argue that the hard problem for color experience is explaining why a brain state does a certain thing, viz., make us aware of color. By examining how neuroscientists explain why brain states perform functions, I argue that the hard problem for color experience can’t be solved since a physical mechanism showing how a brain state makes us aware of color can’t be specified. Implicit in these negative conclusions is a positive view that combines the monism of physicalism with the phenomenality of dualism. The roots for such a view can be found in Russell and Eddington, and it holds promise as a worthy alternative to the usual options of physicalism and dualism. (shrink)

The discussion of the nature of consciousness seems to have stalled, with the “hard problem of consciousness” in its center, well-defined camps of realists and eliminativists at two opposing poles, and little to none room for agreement between. Recent attempts to move this debate forward by shifting them to a meta-level have heavily relied on the notion of “intuition”, understood in a rather liberal way. Against this backdrop, the goal of this paper is twofold. First, we (...) want to highlight how the ontological and epistemological status of intuitions restricts the arguments in the debate on consciousness that rely on them. Second, we want to demonstrate how the deadlock in those debates could be resolved through a study of a particular, “positive” kind of intuitions. We call this approach “The Canberrish Plan for Consciousness” as it adopts elements of the methodological “Canberra Plan”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rebellion and the SacredSacrifice in Camus's RebelBrian Harding (bio)René Girard has argued, in "Camus's Stranger Retried," that Camus's later novel The Fall represents a kind of novelistic conversion on Camus's part: an admission that the ethics of The Stranger were faulty. This is a criticism not only of a character (Mersault) but of the author's own views. In fact, on the Girardian reading, The Fall recognizes that Camus's own (...) activism was never purely altruistic, but partook of a kind of unstated competition, seeking to outstrip others in care for the downtrodden, and thereby prove his supremacy. Both Camus and Clamence, the lawyer in The Fall, recognize that (as Girard puts it)Mercy, in his hands, was a secret weapon against the unmerciful, a more complex form of self-righteousness. His real desire was not to save his clients but to prove his moral superiority by discrediting the judges.1The drama of The Fall is this realization and its ramifications. Beyond this, Girard argues, it represents Camus's judgment on his own work; it represents [End Page 29] the realization that his writings hitherto lacked self-criticism. Until The Fall, Camus revolted against everything but his pride, but in The Fall he turns his critical powers inward, writing the novel as a kind of auto-criticism. I think there is a lot of truth to this, and in what follows, it guides my interpretations of The Rebel.Girard's comments on The Plague suggest that he sees it as essentially "romantic" in the technical sense he gives that term. Like The Stranger, it falls into the illusion of authenticity and autonomy: Dr. Rieux stands apart from the city, paternalistically guiding it without succumbing to the infections circulating around him.2 To the extent that The Rebel is often paired with The Plague (in the same way The Myth of Sisyphus is joined to The Stranger) one might expect that the same could be said of that philosophical essay—that is, that it persists in a romantic delusion of being above or separate from the problems it diagnoses and that The Rebel's defense of the oppressed only serves to assuage the author's conscience, reassuring him that he is one of the good ones—just as did Clamence's work as a defense attorney.That expectation is, I think, only half right. The Rebel, I believe, oscillates between romantic lie and novelistic truth; Camus senses that he is not above the fray and that the very act of rebellion itself unleashes furies that one struggles to tame. Whether he has reached the full consciousness represented by The Fall is uncertain, but it is clear to me that, at times at least, this awareness rises to the surface in The Rebel. Indeed, the emergence and repression of this awareness are part of the book's fascination and flaws. The apparent inconstancy between Camus's lionization of rebellion and his profound worries about what it unleashes is rooted in this oscillation. Because of this oscillation, The Rebel is too complex a text to be treated in a paper of a reasonable length. To simplify matters, I focus on two parts whose interest to readers of Contagion will need no explanation: first, Camus's gnomic remarks on the relationship between rebellion and the sacred, and second, Camus's discussion of the killing of King Louis and the Terror. Following that, I close with some general remarks.REBELLION AND THE SACREDCamus's rebellion is intimately related to the sacred [le sacré]. To be sure, we should not assume that just because Camus and Girard use the same word that they mean the same thing by it. In fact, Camus primarily uses the term to refer to a religious sensibility without developing, for example, a theory of the violent origins of the sacred. Nevertheless, Camus seems to sense that there is a [End Page 30] connection between the sacred and violence. Moreover, it is of course impossible that Camus intended to refer to Girard's work when he alludes to the sacred. Nevertheless, if Girard is right about the meaning and function of the sacred... (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers have turned to folk intuitions about mental states for data about qualia and phenomenal consciousness. In this paper I argue that current research along these lines does not tell us about these subjects. I focus on a series of studies, performed by Justin Sytsma and Edouard Machery, to make my argument. Folk judgments studied by these researchers are mostly likely generated by a certain cognitive system – System One – that will generate the same (...) data whether or not we experience phenomenal consciousness. This is a problem for a range of current experimental philosophy research into consciousness or our concept of it. If experimental philosophy is to shed light into phenomenal consciousness, it needs to be better founded in an understanding of how we make judgments. (shrink)

Any low-level processes, the sequence of chemical interactions in a living cell, muscle cellular activity, processor commands or neuron interaction, is possible only if there is a downward causality, only due to uniting and controlling power of the highest level. Therefore, there is no special “hard problem of consciousness”, i.e. the problem of relation of ostensibly purely biological materiality and non-causal mentality - we have only the single philosophical problem of relation between the upward and (...) downward causalities, the problem of interrelation between hierarchic levels of existence. It is necessary to conclude that the problem of determinacy of chemical processes by the biological ones and the problem of neuron interactions caused by consciousness are of one nature and must have one solution. (shrink)