What is interesting is the ''hard'' in The Hard Problem of Consciousness. Why didn't Chamlers use ''impossible''? — TheMadFool

Because he do not understand the Fundamental Abstraction of natural science and its implications.

Are you taking this a step further and claiming this is the IMPOSSIBLE problem of consciousness? — TheMadFool

Yes. I am not saying that we cannot understand consciousness, only that to do so requires primitive concepts that were projected out of natural science when it left our experience as knowing subjects on the table to fix attention on known physical objects.

There is nothing "spooky" or unnatural about being a knowing subject. It is just logically distinct from being a known object and so beyond the scope of concepts that apply only to reality as objective.

Firstly, thanks for the clarification. What you say makes sense but the hard problem of consciousness characterized as being about an explanatory gap is, essentially, to claim that physical brain activity is not sufficient in providing an explanation of subjective mental experiences but if we recognize the fact that when we wake up from sleep, reactivated brain activity corresponding to a return of subjective mental experiences, we'll come to the realization that the explanatory gap you speak of has more to do with our ignorance than anything even remotely linkable to the many versions of dualism that are doing the rounds. — TheMadFool

Well, yeah, you are just reiterating the point of the hard questioners.. Why/what/how is it that bio/chemical/physical processes of the brain-body are also experiential/mental states as well. That explanatory gap is not explained by the functions of sleep and awake states. That just says what we know already- that consciousness can have sleep and awake states. It in no way points towards an answer to that explanatory gap. Saying that "brain activity corresponds with mental experiences" is already understood and agreed upon. That is not the issue though so you are making a case for the wrong problem.

This explanatory gap you speak of is basically the claim that brain activity is insufficient for providing an explanation of subjective mental states. That's the bottom line of the hard problem of consciousness. — TheMadFool

But that is not. It is sufficient if we are explaining the causes of subjective mental states. It is not sufficient in explaining how neurons, bio/chemical/physical activity (more generally) are/is mental states. See the difference?

2. Brain activity absent (person is asleep) and all mental states are present, including subjective mental states — TheMadFool

First of all brain activity is happening, just different areas of the brain. But I'll overlook this point..

There's no need to hypothesize a non-physical mind substance at all. — TheMadFool

Hard questioners aren't necessarily doing that. Some may be dualists but not all.

However, upon playing with the switch a number of times, putting it on/off(waking/sleeping), C will notice that the bulb's state (presence/absence of mental states, including subjective mental states) correlates with the state of the switch and he'll realize that if there's an explanation for the bulb's state then it has to do with the on/off switch (brain activity/brain inactivity). C, due to his ignorance, doesn't know the explanation for the bulb's behavior (present/absent mental states, including subjective mental states) - the explanatory gap - but what he does know is that it must have something to do with the on/off switch (brain activity/inactivity). — TheMadFool

No one is questioning that brain activity correlates and is necessary and maybe even sufficient for understanding how consciousness operates. Rather, it is how mental states and brain states are one in the same. You keep moving from a metaphysical question (the hard question/ why it is that brain states are mental states too), to easier questions (how bio/chemical/physical processes cause or are correlated with mental states). That is a major difference.

Which is just the kind of problem that Chalmer’s describes as ‘the easy problem’. — Wayfarer

Some people are of the opinion that the hard problem's solution will be found in solutions to the "easy" problems although how exactly is beyond me.

It seems Chalmers did consider the difference between wakefulness and sleep. One of his "easy" problems is:

the difference between wakefulness and sleep. — wikipedia

Perhaps it was an oversight on Chalmer's part, although I'm more inclined to think that I am in error (as is usual), to not have seen the full implication of the difference between sleep and wakefulness. Applying basic principles of causal logic, we're in fact forced to conclude, from the difference between sleep and wakefulness, that brain activity is both sufficient and necessary for qualia, making brain activity suitable enough as an explanatory platform for qualia. In effect that means an explanation of qualia is within the reach of the physical.

At this juncture Nagel's use of the subjective-objective distinction needs to be given attention. All this distinction does is prove that scientific objectivity is incapable of studying subjective consciousness. It doesn't, and this is the key point to note, prove that qualia are not physically effected. That I have a poor climbing equipment doesn't imply that there are no cliffs and rockfaces to climb. Likewise, that scientific objectivity is a poor tool to investigate subjective consciousness doesn't make qualia automatically nonphysical.

All of the above taken into account, the takeaway here is that qualia or other subjectivity based arguments most assuredly do not entail dualism. At best they expose limitations of the scientific method and at worst they're conflating a shortcoming in the scientific method with a problem in the area of inquiry, to wit consciousness.

Please take note that I'm not denying the existence of an explanatory gap but I am denying that this gap entails dualism, specifically dualism that hypothesizes a nonphysical mind substance distinct from the brain.

Thanks for your valuable comments.

But do we have a model that states, "If I send 3 nanos of dopamine to cell number 1,234,562 in quadrent 2 you'll see a red dog?" Not yet. — Philosophim

Building such a model is not the hard problem. The hard problem is: Why does sending 3 nanos of dopamine to cell number 1,234,562 in quadrent 2 you'll see a red dog? What properties of dopamine, cells and synapses allow for the existence of the experience of seeing a red dog

Welcome to the hard problem. — ChrisH

Since you've raised doubts regarding my interpretation of the hard problem, I'd like to hear yours if that's alright with you. Thanks.

You are confusing the easy problem (neural correlates of mental states) with the Hard Problem (how does non-conscious stuff produce conscious experience). Chalmer's paper is a great place to start. This is also good: https://iep.utm.edu/hard-con/

You are confusing the easy problem (neural correlates of mental states) with the Hard Problem (how does non-conscious stuff produce conscious experience). Chalmer's paper is a great place to start. This is also good: https://iep.utm.edu/hard-con/ — RogueAI

How do you know that the work I've linked doesn't tell you how non-conscious stuff produces conscious experience?

Look, the means by which this non-conscious stuff produces consciousness must, if it exists, be some process or mechanism that is a property of this non-conscious suff. It just seems really odd to me that you'd claim interest in such a mechanism and then refuse a study of the exact non-conscious stuff you would need to know about in order to ascertain if the production of consciousness was among their feasible properties.

How do you know that the work I've linked doesn't tell you how non-conscious stuff produces conscious experience?

Because the Hard Problem hasn't been solved. Ergo, the book you linked doesn't solve it.

"Look, the means by which this non-conscious stuff produces consciousness must, if it exists, be some process or mechanism that is a property of this non-conscious suff. It just seems really odd to me that you'd claim interest in such a mechanism and then refuse a study of the exact non-conscious stuff you would need to know about in order to ascertain if the production of consciousness was among their feasible properties."

I don't think neuroscience is going to solve the hard problem. The idea that you can mix non-conscious stuff around in a certain way and add some electricity to it and get consciousness from it is magical thinking. Since we know consciousness exists, we should doubt the non-conscious stuff exists. We have no evidence that it does anyway. Why assume it exists?

No I use my nose. — Janus

But then you betray your cause.

You 'used' your fingers means you do not believe that your fingers independently act of their own accord but are commanded by your mind. Or do you really believe your bodily organ brain commands you and your fingers? It's the other way around, you are the one and only unique 'I' that uses your body parts to carry out your intentions.

Philosophy uses words some ordinary some technical to convey its message. Unfortunately all words are loaded to a lesser or greater extent which with skill can facilitate begging the question in an argument. The podcast is loaded with skunk words to stink out its supposed opponents.

Edit: I reviewed the first 3 minutes of the Frankish podcast to show some detail.
@ :28 the introduction says "this podcast has a subjective impact ... for you",
and if there is to be anything to talk about this must be correct. It is the subjective character of experience that is to be explained or explained away.
@ 3:11 Frankish affirms that "qualia the way experience feels to you -- mental things within you -- something private" is to be the issue, one way or another.

To evaluate experience as a consequence of consciousness we must realize that experience can only be subjective and private to the first person 'I'. To propose tentative elements for that private subjective experience which may be discussed publicly by referring singular events to 'qualia' requires a third person public stance, something similar to what is done in the social sciences. To do so is hand-waving until it can be verified in public communication or practice.

Suppose we're invited to a wine and cheese blind tasting where 5 bottles of wine are in identical decanters marked only by numbers and 5 more decanters have custom blends of the originals. But the fun only starts when we are asked to note in detail the experienced taste and bouquet of each of the 10. Can you smell and taste the distinctions, and can you describe those sensations so someone else can appreciate and valuate the 10 samples just by reading your notes?

@ :46 According to Chalmers, "making sense of this is the hard problem of consciousness",
But by @ 1:01 Frankish is already talking of "the illusion of qualia"
'illusion' doesn't sound like a very objective introduction to me.
@ 1:08 "explaining 'consciousness' is the hard problem", so by now consciousness is a fixed material or physical object with properties to be picked out of a basket of Wittgensteinian apples
@ 1:24 Frankish has moved on to physical brain somehow causally 'producing' physical consciousness. Yikes !
@ 2:00 "how does the brain produce these experiences" , so experience need also be discrete objects to be physically 'produced'

The issue with Frankish is that to him the mind is nothing more than a brain in a beetle box. We can't see it, so we can't talk about it. True for Frankish, but maybe other people can open that box first before they talk about it.

My hunch is that the so-called easy problem of consciousness at a mechanistic level is equally as difficult as the so-called hard problem at the subjective level. They might even be the same problem. — Wheatley

Interesting read here, in that they may be kindasorta equally difficult problems, but they are certainly not the same problem: http://cogprints.org/1617/1/harnad00.mind.humphrey.html

Chalmer's obviously a dualist. That's not what I'm denying. I'm denying that he's somehow assuming it or sneaking it in his explication of the hard problem. There are solutions to the hard problem that do not take dualism to be true.

Let's assume for the sake of the argument that materialism is false because of the hard problem. — Eugen

The Hard Problem just says science will have to come up with new ideas and new strategies to make a theory of consciousness that addresses more than function.

Chalmers is open ended about it. His approach is in keeping with a flexible materialism.

A. Does materialism have a particular handicap compared to other types of metaphysics that do not consider fundamental consciousness, and if so, what is this handicap? — Eugen

Materialism is very poorly defined. As a theory of mind, what people mostly seem to mean is nothing other than emergentism. Emergentism is more clearly defined and informative a word. All materialists, I suggest, think that consciousness only came into being relatively late in the universe, perhaps with the development of brains. And the hard problem applies very much to emergentists: how do we get consciousness from interactions of severally non-conscious systems exactly?

B. Are there rational arguments to circumvent the hard problem in other types of metaphysics, or does neutral monism / panprotopsychism collapse into mysterianism?

I don't see how neutral monism helps - as other posters have pointed out. The natural antithesis of emergentism is panpsychism. And I don't think panpsychism is a form of mysterianism at all. Mysterianism is, perhaps, sometimes even a form of emergentism - "We'll never know how consciousness emerges from brain activity, but somehow it does - all the evidence suggests so."

NB: "The hard problem" (re: qualia) is experimentally^ dismissed with respect to methodological materialism (e.g. eliminativism, emergentism, embodied cognition) and can only be coherently addressed to some version philosophical materialism (i.e. monistic "nothing but"-ism), which has nothing to do with cognitive neuroscientific^ studies of 'consciousness'.

A. Does materialism have a particular handicap compared to other types of metaphysics that do not consider fundamental consciousness, and if so, what is this handicap? — Eugen

No.

B. Are there rational arguments to circumvent the hard problem in other types of metaphysics, or does neutral monism / panprotopsychism collapse into mysterianism?

No and yes.

What the hard problem really is is a problem of the primacy of direct experience (qualia) over language, which is secondary.

A hard truth for some people to accept, but very much a reality.

What I'm saying is that what is immediate is the ineffable, and what is secondary is any description of it. This matters very much.

the real hard problem is the hard problem of matter. how can the mind justify the existence of matter when it only has evidence of consciousness

"The explanatory gap" is misinterpreted by many philosophers as an "unsolvable problem" (by philosophical means alone, of course) for which they therefore fiat various speculative woo-of-the-gaps that only further obfuscate the issue. An "unsolvable problem", after all, is merely ill-formed, a pseudo-problem. "The hard problem of consciousness" is a conspicuous example of a pseudo-problem and remains "unsolvable" in so far as "the explanatory gap" is treated as a metaphysical topic rather than a scientific one.

. There is no hard problem of consciousness. — TheMadFool

That's what they say. But it's swapped with the hard problem of idealism...

Totally different! Numbers are created by Man. Consciousness is not. Numbers are mathematical objects used to count, measure, etc. Consciousness is a state. — Alkis Piskas

This is not true. Numbers are not created by man. As you saw in my original post, "create" means to bring into existence. If man did not exist, the abstract concept of numbers would still exist, just not the word. Also to point out that numbers as a mathematical object is different than consciousness as a state doesn't change anything. Both can be viewed as mathematical objects in which operations or events can be performed. In fact, in computers, numbers, states, and even rasterized images all come in the same form (bits).

Totally different! We are asking how, calculate etc., using our mind. Conscious experience means that we are aware of that. — Alkis Piskas

I was trying to make an analogy with A) a calculator adding 1 + 1 to get 2 and B) physical material creating consciousness. I am sure nobody believes that the number 2 gets "created" when we add 1 + 1 in a calculator. It seems obvious. However some people believe that physical material can "create" consciousness. My argument is that both numbers and consciousness are abstract.

I cannot see anything referring to "Solution to the hard problem of consciousness", which is the title of your topic. What kind of solution are you referring to or aiming at — Alkis Piskas

There isn't any "solution" proposed in my post. It was really meant to be click-bait. Rather the approach that I take to the "hard problem of consciousness" is that our understanding of consciousness might be lacking something. The question on how the physical can "create" consciousness is absurd to me. It is like asking how when we put 1 + 1 in a physical calculator, we "create" the number 2. Because we know that's now how "creation" and "existence" works.

I hope that clarifies my argument

That's true, but not applicable here. If I tell you I've solved the hard problem, you wouldn't just take my word for it. — RogueAI

Ya, you're right, it isn't applicable to the hard problem. I was just addressing something Janus said as a side issue.

I mean, it is true that in terms of acquaintance, we are best acquainted with experience than anything we study in nature. — Manuel

Is there any experience without acquaintance with nature, or any acquaintance with nature without experience? I think experience is just a word to denote that we have awareness. To my way of thinking the so-called "hard problem" is a kind of illusion based on thinking that what matter is is clearly understood; that it is something like "dead" particles that could not, according to our conception, possibly give rise to what we think of as "immaterial" subjective experience. The hard problem then seems to me to be an expression of incredulity based on ignorance.

Is there any experience without acquaintance with nature, or any acquaintance with nature without experience? I think experience is just a word to denote that we have awareness. — Janus

True, I use experience so to avoid saying "consciousness", and to a lesser extent "awareness", as they are used too frequently.

I think technically, what you say is correct. We have acquaintance with nature in so far as we can experience parts of it. But parts of it must be outside our experience.

To my way of thinking the so-called "hard problem" is a kind of illusion based on thinking that what matter is is clearly understood; that it is something like "dead" particles that could not, according to our conception, possibly give rise to what we think of as "immaterial" subjective experience. — Janus

100%

That's actually historically accurate. Locke speaks about this extremely lucidly in his Essay. A lot of what he said has been forgotten.

I shared a quote here by him, though the whole chapter is fantastic:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/387/tpf-quote-cabinet/p11

The hard problem then seems to me to be an expression of incredulity based on ignorance. — Janus

You're speaking about this better than me. Yeah, I think we sometimes verge on the fallacy that we know so much, when I think it's the opposite. Which makes what we do know all the more impressive. There's no reason why a species should understand anything about nature.

In my opinion, the hard problem of consciousness simply doesn't exist. — Hermeticus

Yes--at least as a philosophical problem.

I think this kind of pursuit has its basis in an obstinate rejection of the fact that all we are, and do, and think, takes place in the universe; i.e., that we're just another kind of organism, although a remarkable one from our perspective. The belief--the hope?--that we're more than that, and that there's something literally supernatural about us is hard for us to tolerate. I suspect dualism is the cause of this as it is of so much other speculation.

It may be that we'll discover much more about consciousness, but it's very unlikely philosophy will be the means of discovery.

the hard problem of consciousness simply doesn't exist. — Hermeticus

:up:

"Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by conscious experience?"

Another prior question is...what do can we mean by 'conscious experience' ? Looking at the use of the word, it seems we always depend on 'material' or 'objective' criteria for ascribing 'consciousness.' All we can reason from must be more or less uncontroversially public. (This is not new. Consider key passages from Philosophical Investigations.)

In short, the 'hard problem' is 'defined' (paradoxically) into a kind of pseudo-existence. It's a mirage.

What was missed in all of that is that mind (consciousness, being) is never an object of consciousness, because we're never outside of or apart from it. It is always only the subject of experience, but you can't 'objectify' it, for reasons which ought to be obvious on reflection. — Wayfarer

But we are talking about it right now. The concept is familiar and 'objectified.'

If we were truly 'never outside of or apart from it,' we'd have no word for it and no need for a word for it.

But that also means that it can't be accomodated by the 'objective sciences', due to their constitution being oriented exclusively around what is objectively the case (which is why the eliminative materialists wish to eliminate it, as there is literally no conceptual space on their map for it). — Wayfarer

'Objective sciences' sounds redundant to me. "Expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations." I can't speak for all critics of the qualia concept, but I suspect most of us know (in the usual problematic way) what the 'mysterions' are trying to say. We say it's a bug, not a feature. The hard problem is a hard problem for those want to give 'conscious experience' a metaphysical as opposed to an everyday-and-impure-and-unobjectionable meaning.

So when presenting someone not familiar with the hard problem, or even has really grasped it (and is not of a mystical bent), they will quickly answer: "Because evolution has created it!" when asked, "Why is it we have sensations, thoughts, feelings associated with physical processes?".

How does one actually get the point across why this is not an acceptable answer as far as the hard problem is concerned? — schopenhauer1

Maybe tell them about how ancient reptiles' jaw bones evolved into the inner ear bones in modern mammals. The study of evolution tells us that it happened, but you need to study the anatomy and physiology of the ear to understand how it works.

Anyone answering in such a blase way is missing the point.

Looks like a problem of ‘why’ and ‘how’. Meaning we can fairly confidently state that consciousness has arisen through evolutionary processes of some sort (the ‘why’ of consciousness) but we cannot address the intricacies of the process or get to grips with demarcating what exactly is meant by ‘consciousness’ (the ‘how’ of consciousness).

Chalmers philosophical zombie is one of those hypotheticals that many misrepresent/misinterpret. He merely states that it is not hard to imagine creatures on another world living as we do today and doing what we do yet having no consciousness whatsoever (there are no known rules of physics that state this could not be possible). From there it is then a question of asking what is the difference between us and them.

That is the simplest way I know of that outlines the so-called hard problem of consciousness so tell them that. If it doesn’t interest them it doesn’t interest them. The common entrenched reactions of many in my experience on forums like this is to shout ‘fantasy’ and walk away … let them walk away.

But then you’d understand it.
— Joshs

So can you explain? — schopenhauer1

The hard problem is due to a seemingly irreparable split between dead matter and subjective consciousness, the ‘feeling of what it is like’ to experience dead matter. I think the root of this split , which can be blamed on Galileo , Descartes and other progenitors of modem science , is the difficulty philosophers have had with modeling movement and change. The way our language is structured inclines us toward giving preference to nouns over verbs, identity over difference. As a result , movement and change are explained by deriving them
from stasis and identity. This worked ok when modeling physical processes, which lend themselves (imperfectly) to description as self-identical entities with properties and attributes. But it was apparent that subjective awareness involved some kind of energetic dynamism that resisted this kind of description. Having no other way to depict identity and change, consciousness was typically treated as a special kind of object or substance, something mysterious and ineffable. Others tried to pretend that it simply didnt exist, and was just a kind of illusion that could be reduced to good old fashioned physical processes.

The first incarnations of evolutionary theory, while giving much greater importance to transformation than pre-Darwinian thought, also derived change from the rule-governed causal behavior of static objects, and so the hard problem remained.
But with approaches in philosophy such as poststructuralism and phenomenology , it became possible to understand the relation between identity and difference in a fresh way. In short, they reversed the priority of identity over difference, arguing that all
processes in nature generate identity as a derived product of differentiations. The static thinking of objects with assigned properties was now recognized to be the illusion.

The upshot here is that the mysteriously inner , ineffable quality we associate with consciousness is nothing inner. It is the experience of differentiation upon differentiation upon differentiation. Neural changes coordinate with bodily processes , which are inextricably embedded within environmental interactions. There is nothing but incessant change and transformation here. More importantly, this holistic dynamism is not confined to living processes, but characterizes what had formerly been thought as as the dead world of physical entities. Objects with properties are only probabilistic extrapolations from continuously differentiating multiplicities. So in a sense , we must trace back the ‘feeling’ dynamism of consciousness to the dynamism of pre-living processes. Subjectivity and perspective are necessary grounds of the physical.

So when presenting someone not familiar with the hard problem, or even has really grasped it (and is not of a mystical bent), they will quickly answer: "Because evolution has created it!" when asked, "Why is it we have sensations, thoughts, feelings associated with physical processes?".

How does one actually get the point across why this is not an acceptable answer as far as the hard problem is concerned? — schopenhauer1

This is, again, confusing the how with the why question by those who answer the question that way. They're answering the how thinking they're providing the why answer. Philosophically, we cannot answer why humans have sensations, consciousness, and feelings. We can only answer the how humans became this way -- through mutation, evolution, etc.