What exactly do you think the so-called "hard problem" is asking for? — Janus

The "easy problem" refers to explaining functions of consciousness like how memory is laid down, how the visual cortex works, stuff like that.

The "hard problem" refers to explaining the experiences that accompany function. Why is there an experience that accompanies sight? Why aren't we like computers that see, process visual data, and respond per protocols, but without any accompanying experience?

Science has the conceptual framework to address the easy problem. It lacks that framework to address the hard problem. To make progress, the realm of the physical will have to expand to include subjectivity. At first, the addition will be along the lines of what gravity originally was: just a name for something we know about. Adding gravity as a thing to be explained by science was the first step in creating theories about it. At the time, some people objected to including gravity because it was thought that this was an injection of mysticism into science. Fortunately, flexible minds prevailed and progress began. Same thing here (one hopes).

This suggests that the origin of the explanatory gap is theoretical, if only the wrong theory wasn't chosen there wouldn't be one.. I can't see how this is so. One of these two propositions must be shown to be false to resolve the hard problem:

1. The existence of mental events is conditional on the right kinds of physical events taking place. (note that this does not imply epiphenomenalism).

2. We can't conceive how physical events can engender mental events, as an exhaustive inventory of physical events does not seem to imply mental events.

Does the choice of theory as described here impact either? — hypericin

We need to add a third option.

3. The existence of mental events is conditional on the right kinds of natural events taking place, but to understand how this naturalist account unites the mental and the non-mental, we have to jettison physicalism.

Evan Thompson argues:

“One way of formulating the hard problem is to ask: if we had a complete, canonical, objective, physicalist account of the natural world, including all the physical facts of the brain and the organism, would it conceptually or logically entail the subjective facts of consciousness? If this account would not entail these facts, then consciousness must be an additional, non-natural property of the world.

One problem with this whole way of setting up the issue, however, is that it presupposes we can make sense of the very notion of a single, canonical, physicalist description of the world, which is highly doubtful, and that in arriving (or at any rate approaching) such a description, we are attaining a viewpoint that does not in any way presuppose our own cognition and lived experience. In other words, the hard problem seems to depend for its very formulation on the philosophical position known as transcendental or metaphysical realism. From the phenomenological perspective explored here, however — but also from the perspective of pragmatism à la Charles Saunders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as its contemporary inheritors such as Hilary Putnam (1999) — this transcendental or metaphysical realist position is the paradigm of a nonsensical or incoherent metaphysical viewpoint, for (among other problems) it fails to acknowledge its own reflexive dependence on the intersubjectivity and reciprocal empathy of the human life-world.

…we can see historically how the concept of nature as physical being got constructed in an objectivist way, while at the same time we can begin to conceive of the possibility of a different kind of construction that would be post-physicalist and post-dualist–that is, beyond the divide between the “mental” (understood as not conceptually involving the physical) and the “physical” (understood as not conceptually involving the mental).”

Its role is not as an internal agent or ho-munculus that issues commands, but as an order parameter that or-ganizes and regulates dynamic activity. Freeman and Varela thus agree that consciousness is neurally embodied as a global dynamic activity pattern that organizes activity throughout the brain.”
— Joshs

Does this mean something? — hypericin

Yes, and to understand this you might start by googling ‘Enactivism’. Then I recommend The Embodied Mind by Varela, Thompson and Rosch and Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind, by Evan Thompson.

A solution to the hard problem is to recognize that it is merely one of many.

Back in the 17th century the "hard rock of philosophy" was the problem of motion, in which "motion has effects which we in no way can conceive".

What happened with that problem? It was accepted and science and philosophy continued - in fact, to this day, the hard problem of motion has not been solved, but we work with what we have.

I suspect the same solution applies to today's peculiar hard problem. We have to accept it as fact, as Locke recognized long before Chalmers.

1. There is a real consciousness humans have, like all animals, at least, albeit in varying "complexities." It is organic attunement to organic feelings drives movements sensations presently and with no movement in time, possibly not space, as in monistic ("aware-ing"). But Ive said too much because we cannot know aware-ing; aware-ing is "pre" knowing. Our only access to aware-ing is being the aware-ing. — ENOAH

Except for the reference to non-human animals, this is very Aristotelian. He characterizes the mind/intellect (nous) as nothing until it thinks something. He would say that we have the potential to know and objects have the potential to be known, but neither is actually anything until knowing occurs.

It seems to me that we cannot and do not know that non-human animals are subjects of awareness in the way we are. They are certainly conscious in the sense of being responsive, but that is not the same thing.

2. The aware-ing can organically attune, when feelings of pleasure arise, aware-ing pleasure; pain, aware-ing pain. Apple comes into view, aware-ing apple. Not "I" subject of the sentence see apple object. Aware-ing x-ing is one present event; no duality because Mind hasn't constructed difference yet. — ENOAH

Again, this is a very classical position. First, the subject knowing the object is identically the object being known by the subject. They are one in the moment. Second, we can't distinguish aspects of oneness until we are first aware of the whole. Maritain writes of "distinguishing to unite." He means that we are aware of a whole, then divide it up mentally, (say, into subject and object), and then put it back together: "I see the apple." Making distinctions and judgements is the end of a process that begins with a whole. We don't start with the parts and then build wholes.

3. Once mind emerged (through (to oversimplify) the evolution of Language) aware-ing x-ing was displaced by "I" am looking at an apple, or I am enjoying this Icecream. — ENOAH

That is what I was trying to describe.

5. So now "aware" of an object acting on my senses just means that the natural aware-ing, where there is no hard problem, is displaced by mediating processes of constuctions and projects. Such that there is the "illusion" of a hard problem; the illusion that we are "aware" of an "object" when really we have constructed it then projected it as object. — ENOAH

The "hard problem" is not a real problem. It is like the difficulty of cutting apart concepts using scissors. If you think that all dividing is done using knives and scissors, it is a very hard to know how we can divide the ideas of red and green. The problem is not in the dividing, but in demanding that it be done using unsuitable methods.

Nice chatting.

The "hard problem" is not a real problem. It is like the difficulty of cutting apart concepts using scissors. If you think that all dividing is done using knives and scissors, it is a very hard to know how we can divide the ideas of red and green. The problem is not in the dividing, but in demanding that it be done using unsuitable methods. — Dfpolis

Yes. The Hard Problem is not a "real" problem, it's an "ideal" problem. It's not a Scientific problem, but a Philosophical dilemma. It's not a problem of isolated material things, but of integrated mental concepts.

The "unsuitable methods" are those of Philosophy, as contrasted with Physics. "Cutting apart concepts using scissors" is a reductive method, which converts a whole concept into disconnected bits. The Properties of the analyzed bits may not be the same as the Qualia of the whole concept. :nerd:

Except for the reference to non-human animals, this is very Aristotelian. He characterizes the mind/intellect (nous) as nothing until it thinks something. He would say that we have the potential to know and objects have the potential to be known, but neither is actually anything until knowing occurs. — Dfpolis

In Physics there is no such thing as Potential, since it is nothing until actualized. But it is a useful Philosophical notion, allowing us to think about how Nothing can become Something. For example, an isolated AAA battery has Zero voltage, but the potential for 1.5 volts, when actualized by plugging into a complete circuit : a whole recursive system.

Like the concept of Time (a process of becoming), the concept of Mind is not a particular Thing, but a continuum of Knowing. So, when we analyze Consciousness --- the process of transforming incoming objective sensory data into subjective meaning --- we gain bits of digital Data but lose the continuous personal Meaning of a complete concept. Nous is nothing (potential) until it thinks about something, then it becomes an Idea, an immaterial representation of something.

Sorry, I'm just riffing on a theme, for my own amusement, using unsuitable methods. :smile:

First, lets clarify what 'the hard problem is'. Is it that we're conscious? No. Is it that the brain causes consciousness? No. The idea that consciousness is caused by our physical brains is the easy problem. The hard problem is, "Will we ever know what it is like to BE a conscious individual that isn't ourselves".

In other words, we ever be able to duplicate the experience of being another person? Or an animal? An insect? Because despite all of our capability to study the actions of a consciousness, we can't 'experience' what its like to be that consciousness. Its very much like the question of, "What does it feel like to be water?" We say its not conscious because of its behavior, but what is it to BE water?

Lets say that one day we're able to replicate what seems to be consciousness from the brain. How do we objectively determine this? Do we don a helmet on another person and ask them, "We're emulating your consciousness. Does this feel what its like to be you?" Beyond the fact that it would be a conscious being thinking about the consciousness outside of their consciousness, where's the objective test? The measurements that don't rely on subjective experience? They don't exist. Because to know what its like to be conscious is a subjective experience. There is no objective measure but the honesty of the subject itself. And can such experiences be communicated in words? Can the person experiencing a perfect replica of the consciousness as a third party observer really have the full experience?

If anyone tells you, "The hard problem is proving that the brain causes consciousness," they misunderstand. It isn't even "Why does this cause concsiousness" that's the hard problem either. Its really saying, "How can we objectively measure and explore the purely subjective experience of being conscious?" With our current understanding of science, we can't.

I know, the right language is hard to find. What I think we want to describe is the subjective event that occurs when, say, I think of a purple cow. The image of the cow is rather like something that "appears to a mind" but if that seems too Cartesian-theater, no matter. We can perhaps find better language, but I hope the target concept is clear enough: First the cow isn't there (for me), and then it is, not as a pattern of neurons but as a cowish purply image. What has happened? That's the event we're concerned about, which I'm suggesting we could call a "phenomenon". — J

But you are already assuming your conclusion by describing some event as subjective. You could have said the same thing without using the word and it wouldn't change the meaning of what you said.

To say that there is something there and then it isn't there can be said about anything in the world. A rotten apple's ripeness was there but now it is not, and an apple's ripeness or rottenness can be described as an event, or process. Everything changes. The mind is not special in this regard. I prefer the term, "process" instead of "phenomenon". I think of everything as process (Whitehead).

When someone uses the word, "subjective" I'm thinking about the form the information takes in the mind as relative to one's person located in space-time. Visually, the world appears located relative to the eyes, but we understand that the world is not located relative to the eyes. It is in assuming that the world is as it appears that is subjective. In changing your perspective in understanding the mind as a map instead of a window to reality do you see your mind as it really is and take on a more objective view of one's own mind. Does your mind exist as it really is? If so, can you say that you have an objective, or direct, view of your mind? It seems to me that we have to have direct access to our minds at the very least, and just as the distinction between subjective and objective is incoherent, so is the distinction between direct and indirect realism.

The problem here is that, in order to get from "brain measurements of wavelengths of light and sound" to "an appearance in the mind" and the idea that "we" interact with the world, we have to import some new concepts. Mind? We? Where did this subjectivity come from? Once again, the hard problem: How do we get from here to there? Why should there be anything like an appearance in the mind, if the brain seems ideally equipped to do the measuring on its own and respond accordingly? — J

The problem is in assuming that you see the world as it is, as if the mind were a window to reality instead of a map to reality. In assuming that the world is at it appears with solid, static objects, (in a similar way that a map uses static symbols to represent a dynamic environment) and trying to reconcile that with the way the mind appears, does one come up against the hard problem of consciousness. Instead, I think of the world as process, or information, and the mind is just another kind of process, or information. To me, the solution to the hard problem lies in abandoning dualistic thinking and adopting a type of monism where the world is not material, or physical. It is a process.

The hard problem of existence (what cogito ergo sum purports to satisfy) is a bit different than the hard mind-body problem, which is in one sense the "mechanism" or "causal force itself" behind the relationship that exists between bodies and minds. We do not need to know the fundamental source or nature of a phenomenon before we can conclude that it "exists". Rationally the existence of a given phenomenon (like falling apples or crop circles) precedes the investigative processes seeking to determine it's function, mechanism, source, purpose, nature, etc...

Even in a dream state, cogito ergo sum still applies; the dream exists in the thoughts of the dreamer, the dreamer exists..

"Cogito ergo sum" does not give us any useful information about the nature of existence, all it does is confirm that something is there, for certain (purportedly), to begin with.

Maybe we're just images flowing from a projector, if so, the images still exist... Cogito ergo sum does not help in solving the hard mind body problem, nor does the hard body-mind problem invalidate "cogito ergo sum". If it did, then the argument would look like "We do not understand how this thinking experience thing works or is created, therefore we/it might not exist at all", which seems to contradict itself.

@Wayfarer

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? — schopenhauer1

Again, I've failed to make you see my point. Let me try again; perhaps a little detail about David Chalmers, the author of the hard problem of consciousness will help. Before I begin, take note that there might be some inaccuracies but hopefully they will not prove to be an impediment.

David Chalmers is a dualist i.e. he believes there's a non-physical aspect to mind. The hard problem of consciousness is, in all likelihood, foundational to his dualist outlook which implies that the hard problem of consciousness entails dualism. I will stick to your characterization of the hard problem of consciousness as an explanatory gap, the basic assertion being that, to keep it short, qualia can't be explained in terms of brain states.

My reply to the above is not to deny that there's an explantory gap - there is. However, and this is my claim, this explantory gap doesn't entail dualism as Chalmers seems to believe. The fact that when the brain shuts off, qualia disappear and when the brain is reactivated, qualia return, clearly demonstrates both the necessity and sufficiency of brain states for qualia. If brain states are both sufficient and necessary for qualia, which entails that qualia have a physical basis, why entertain dualism? It's unnecessary and therefore unwarranted.

Think of it like a mystery that needs solving. Someone has given qualia to conscious people. We know, with certainty, that Materialism did it for Materialism (brain states) is both sufficient and necessary for qualia. Why then should the investigators of this mystery about who gave qualia to conscious people have another suspect, Dualism?

Where does one look for an explanation for something aside from the sufficient and necessary conditions for it? — TheMadFool

If you don't know the mechanism or cause of consciousness, you can't claim to know what the necessary conditions are or the sufficient conditions are. You can make arguments as you did that brains are enough, but the hard problem is precisely how does it arise. And we don't know that? We don't even know where it isn't. We do not places where it is. And those places are able to do all sorts of cognitive functions, like remember, and generally report. But we have no idea if these functions are necessary for raw experiencing. So, I see two problems with the OP: it doesn't actually address the hard problem - which is how does consciousness arise? and then since it doesn't address the how, we can't even know where to limit consciousness to.

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explainingwhy and how sentient organisms have qualia or phenomenal experiences—how and why it is that some internal states are subjective, felt states, such as heat or pain, rather than merely nonsubjective, unfelt states, as in a thermostat or a toaster.

You're arguing against dualism, say. That's not the same issue. It's related, but it doesn't solve this problem.

I view "the hard problem" as not really a "problem". All its really doing is stating, "Figuring out how your subjective consciousness maps to your brain in an exact and repeatable model is hard." — Philosophim

Well firstly this concedes the point. You are agreeing it's difficult (hard) and a work in progress (a problem).

But the rest of your post seems to be implying that we broadly understand how phenomena like pain, or color occur, we are just narrowing in on more precise answers. As someone working in the field of neuroscience I can say that that just isn't the case.
While, for example, we can understand a great deal about how the visual cortex and retina process input data to perform, for example, edge detection, where the sensation of "redness" enters the picture, we still don't know.

And how you can know that we don't know, is in predictive power. I'm personally not very impressed by the various handwaves of the hard problem of consciousness because where are the testable inferences or predictions?

Chalmers retains core reductionist assumptions in his approach.

From Zahavi:

“ Chalmers’s discussion of the hard problem has identified and labeled an aspect of consciousness that
cannot be ignored. However, his way of defining and distinguishing the hard problem from the easy problems
seems in many ways indebted to the very reductionism that he is out to oppose. If one thinks that cognition and
intentionality is basically a matter of information processing and causal co-variation that could in principle just as
well go on in a mindless computer–or to use Chalmers’ own favored example, in an experienceless zombie–
then one is left with the impression that all that is really distinctive about consciousness is its qualitative or
phenomenal aspect. But this seems to suggest that with the exception of some evanescent qualia everything
about consciousness including intentionality can be explained in reductive (computational or neural) terms; and
in this case, epiphenomenalism threatens.
To put it differently, Chalmers’s distinction between the hard and the easy problems of consciousness
shares a common feature with many other recent analytical attempts to defend consciousness against the
onslaught of reductionism: They all grant far too much to the other side. Reductionism has typicallyproceeded
with a classical divide and rule strategy. There are basically two sides to consciousness: Intentionality and
phenomenality. We don’t currently know how to reduce the latter aspect, so let us separate the two sides, and
concentrate on the first. If we then succeed in explaining intentionality reductively, the aspect of phenomenality
cannot be all that significant. Many non-reductive materialists have uncritically adopted the very same strategy.
They have marginalized subjectivity by identifying it with epiphenomenal qualia and have then claimed that it is
this aspect which eludes reductionism.
But is this partition really acceptable, are we really dealing with two separate problems, or is experience
and intentionality on the contrary intimately connected? Is it really possible to investigate intentionality properly
without taking experience, the first-person perspective, semantics, etc., into account? And vice versa, is it
possible to understand the nature of subjectivity and experience if we ignore intentionality. Or do we not then run
the risk of reinstating a Cartesian subject-world dualism that ignores everything captured by the phrase “being-
in-the-world.” (Intentionality and phenomenality
A phenomenological take on the hard problem)

The hard problem more than presupposing dualism, presupposes that it's obvious that certain problems can be distinguished between "easy" and "hard".

Not that there aren't topics that we are more or less informed, relative to something else. There clearly are areas of research which are harder than others in terms of complexity. Psychology is harder than physics because there are too many factors involved, whereas physics, while technically very difficult, studies "simple structures".

But when it comes to foundational questions, it's far from clear that one can make an easy/hard problem distinction. Along with McGinn, and foreshadowed by many, of the classical figures, it looks to me that every aspect of nature is a mystery.

I used to not understand this point well, but I think it clear(er) to me now, as Darwin once said, roughly, that we shouldn't regard thought arising in matter as more marvelous than the properties of gravity, magnetism and so on, also properties of matter. It may be unbelievable for us, or extremely hard to accept. But that's then a problem of our nature, and thus an epistemological issue, not pertaining to the nature of the actual world.

The so-called "Hard Problem" just consists in the perceived difficulty, or impossibility, of explaining the mind in physicalist language. For me it simply appears to be a category error. We understand ourselves, our minds, in terms of reasons, and physicalist explanations are given in terms of causes. Reasons cannot be understood in terms of causes, and to try to do so is a category error which generates the Hard Problem. At least that's how I see it. Spinoza nailed this nearly 400 years ago in response to Descartes' dualism and the interaction problem it generates. I see the interaction problem as being basically the same problem as the hard problem; just in different dress, so to speak.

There's a what it is like to be conscious - what it is like to think, smell, feel, taste, see, and hear - and this aspect of consciousness is known only to me. I can't put it out there, like I can my hand, for study/examination by another person. Thus, if I want to investigate consciousness from a scientific standpoint, I could only channel my efforts towards neurons, synapses, the brain, and so on but not that side to consciousness referred to by the expression "what it is like to be conscious". This is the hard problem of consciousness.

However, what bothers me is this: The hard problem of consciousness actually does not refute physicalism since it doesn't prove consciousness is physically inexplicable. All it does is show existing scientific methods can't access the what it is like to be conscious facet of consciousness. It's like saying that a ladder (science) is too short to reach the roof (consciousness) and not that if we ever get our hands on a longer ladder (improved and more sophisticated science) we still won't be able to give a physical explanation for consciousness including the what it is like to be conscious of it.

In short, the hard problem of consciousness is more about the limitations of our tools (science) than anything special about consciousness. Though the intention was to score a point for nonphysicalism, the hard problem of consciousness is simply a critique on physicalism.

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 — Manuel

:up: Great passage: I must read Locke one day!

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. — Manuel

Exactly! The world is intelligible to us, to be sure, if it weren't we could not survive, we would be helpless in the play of blind forces. The intelligibility of their surroundings is also essential to any animal's survival. But this intelligibility is not absolute understanding, and nor should we deduce from the fact of intelligibility that we have any capacity for absolute understanding.

I guess they could be seen as different in the sense that the first definition is broad and the second is more of an attempt to target one’s intuition of what the first definition means. — Paul Michael

I'm not seeing how "individual instances" necessarily mean "what it is like to have individual instances". I think the latter is largely an artifact of reflection; that is, a post hoc rationalization which leads to reification of qualia as something over and above lived experience.

Yes, we are, but everything we are aware of falls within the larger context of the universe/reality. So we are aware of the universe/reality, just not all of it in its totality. — Paul Michael

I think it is more accurate to say that we are aware of parts of the universe, parts of reality, and of course we logically conclude that there must be a whole which is greater than the parts that we see. The whole can never be an object of awareness though.

The hard problem is trying to explain why there is a difference in the evidence used to assert that you are aware vs.asserting that others are aware. How you come to know that you are aware vs. knowing others are aware is totally different. — Harry Hindu

You might think that is a hard problem, but it is not the so-called "Hard Problem". I don't think it is a hard problem at all; it seems obvious to me that you intimately know you are aware because you are yourself, and do not know others are aware in the same way, because you are not them.

what do can we mean by 'conscious experience' ? — ajar

Is that posed rhetorically? Like, 'we can't mean anything by the phrase "conscious experience".' Because I think 'conscious experience' has a perfectly intelligible meaning - it's the quality of experience that we have in each waking moment of our lives.

The hard problem essay argues that this is a perfectly obvious fact about the nature of existence, but that it can't be fully described or explained from a third-person perspective.

So it is true that there really isn't a hard problem, as such, and that there's only a hard problem for the objective sciences. But from that perspective, it really is a hard problem, which is why Chalmer's opponents are obliged to deny that it is real.

"The hard problem" is a pseudo-problem due to assuming an unwarranted confusion / conflation of an ontological duality with semantic duality compounded subsequently by observing that polar opposite terms "subjectivity" and "objectivity" cannot be described in terms of one another, which amounts to framing the "problem" based on a category mistake. There isn't an "hard problem" to begin with, schop. — 180 Proof

"The hard problem" is not only a real problem, but even extremely important. If you see animals as non-sentient machines, there is no reason at all for animal welfare for the sake of animals, and you could recycle the animals as we do with plants

"The hard problem" is a pseudo-problem due to assuming an unwarranted confusion / conflation of an ontological duality with semantic duality compounded subsequently by observing that polar opposite terms "subjectivity" and "objectivity" cannot be described in terms of one another, which amounts to framing the "problem" based on a category mistake. There isn't an "hard problem" to begin with, schop. — 180 Proof

Why is that framing the problem based on a category mistake? There exists qualitative aspects to things. This exists in what we know (ourselves), more broadly (humans), and even more broadly (other sentient life forms). How is it that that phenomena fits into the structure of material processes?

Really, I see the hard problems as a direct critique at Materialism. Materialism proposes that everything is material or abstractions of material. There is no room for "inner aspects" because that itself is not material. The map becomes confused with the territory. Or perhaps, the territory has no room for the specific kind of territory and we are back to square one.

If you go and say "but material can be inner aspects" the question is "how". If you say "illusion" that has to be accounted for. If you say that physical is qualitative, then you become a sort of panpsychist or idealist and no longer a materialist. It's more tricky than you are letting on.

That science has not explained. I see no reason to believe it can't. — T Clark

It's not complicated. Science (or at least a lot of it) begins with the presumption of objectivity, that it is studying something that really so, independently of your or my opinions. It assumes the separation of subject and object, and attempts to arrive at objective descriptions of measurable entities. And the mind is not among those entities. The hardline eliminative materialists will insist that the mind nevertheless can be described completely in third-person terms without omission. That is the target of David Chalmer's original formulation of 'the hard problem', for instance, when he says:

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. — David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Hard Problem

My paraphrase of this is simply that experience is first-person. It cannot be fully described in third-person terms, as there must always be a subject to whom the experience occurs. What I think Chalmers is awkwardly trying to describe is actually just being, as in human being. And what I think the 'eliminativists' exemplify is what is criticized by philosophers as 'the forgetfulness of being'.

Husserl, as @Constance points out, anticipated this in his criticism of naturalism.

The "hard problem" is so hard because it's built upon the idea that we can solve all the easy ones, but what's left... that... that is the hard problem.

There is no light switch. No "on" and "off". Consciousness - as we know it - emerges via biological mutations and time. It begins with avoiding danger and gathering resources and grows in it's complexity over enough time and mutation. We know that consciousness - as we know it - is existentially dependent upon certain brain structures as well as all sorts of other biological machinery.

There is no "aha there it is!" moment. The "hard problem" is all in the name and the purported criterion of consciousness that is being taken into consideration.

Do we know there's something by virtue of which we have experiences? Can't we just have them, does some additional factor need to 'allow' it? — Isaac

No particularly, I was just trying to relate the words 'consciousness' and 'experience' in a sentence such that they are linked in meaning, which I think they clearly are.

The hard problem has, as a foundational axiom, the notion that the things we talk about - experiences, awareness,... - ought to be causally connected to the objects of empirical sciences. — Isaac

Yes, I think that's sort of right. Of course, people who like to go on about the hard problem (me for instance) tend to use this a sort of reductio:

1) Assume that consciousness is caused/realised/instantiated/whatever by some physical processes
2) Figuring out exactly how seems impossibly hard
therefore 3) It's probably not the case that consciousness is caused/realised/instantiated/whatever by some physical processes

But this only has any force if we have a particular definition of 'consciousness'. If we define consciousness as a physical function, for example, the hard problem disappears. That's why definitions are absolutely crucial.

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience. — David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Flowery vague ambiguities all packaged up nicely into a name. It's all in the name. It's all about the name. What's the name picking out to the exclusion of all else?

There is nothing it is like to be me.

"Felt" quality of redness??? The redness of the apple feels...

Gibberish.

It's qualia because the felt quality of the redness is private and unique to each individual...

,,,colors are not the sort of thing that we feel.

What unites each of these is that some folk call them "states of experience" not that there is something it is like to be a conscious organism.

As if all conscious organisms who been burnt were/are conscious to the same degree about the same things in all the same ways? Gibberish. As if all people share one and only one set of characteristics or features of and/or within experience such that it makes sense to say that there is something it is like to be a person or a bat or a cat or whatever?

The hard problem of consciousness is nothing more than self-imposed bewitchment.

You have conflated easier problems with the Hard Problem. — schopenhauer1

No I have not, I haven't suggested any problems. I am just addressing one of the pseudo philosophical "why" questions of Chalmers's supposedly "hard problem.[/quote]

Easier problems deal with mechanisms for brain function. — schopenhauer1

No they are not Neuroscience deals with far more difficult problems than Chalmers teleological fallacious questions.[/quote]

This can be tested and is amenable to empirical verification. — schopenhauer1

-Please watch Anil Seth lectures on the subject. You will learn about our difficulties.

The Hard Problem is how it is that there is a point of view. — schopenhauer1

Its like asking "why previously exited electrons produce a particle out of thin air"....the answer to all this type of questions is "because they do".

The problem is that people who try to handwave the question by purporting the easier problems as the solution, aren't getting it. — schopenhauer1

-The question is fallacious(teleology) since the answer can only be whatever the questioner desires.
The fact is that in Nature fundamental or emergent properties "exist" and asking ''why" they exist is a nonsensical question.

They are ALREADY assuming the consequent without explaining it. — schopenhauer1

If you study the scientific material of the interdisciplinary fields you will see that we are tackling far more meaningful and logical questions. As I wrote before,this why question can be answered by Evolutionary biology. Experiencing your Environment provides a Survival advantage to Organisms(animals) that aren't plants and need to move around and compete for resources. The fact that we have 2.5 milion of species (animals and insects) with different qualities of experiences verifies the evolutionary character of the property.

It is the Homunculus Fallacy. Simply listing off physical processes doesn't get at things like subjective qualia or imagination. — schopenhauer1

You are confusing the ability to be conscious with the quality of a conscious experience. That is a common error idealists do based on Bad Language Mode. You also confuse a secondary Mind Property with Consciousness which is the top 3 (According to Neuroscience).
Again I can not stress it enough. Individuals you want to understand the phenomenon they NEED to study our official Scientific knowledge on the topic. The second important step is to STOP using abstract concepts and assume that it points to a substance/entity/agent.

What IS that thing that mind-thing that I am doing when I am imagining a blue cube being rotated in my mind? What is THAT. — schopenhauer1

-That is a mental state. Your Central Later Thalamus has the ability to connect different areas of your brain, specialized in Memory/past experience, logic, Abstract thinking, Symbolic language, Critical thinking, Imagination etc and introduce content in that specific mental state....and all this is enabled by your Ascending Reticular Activating System.

You can say it is "such-and-such neural networks" and that it developed because of "such-and-such evolutionary reasons", but that is not answering the question. — schopenhauer1

-Of course it answers a huge part of that answer and not only that!!!! We can use this knowledge either to force a brain to recreate that specific state, we can read brain scans and based on the brain patter we can accurately (up to 85%) decode the conscious thought of the subject, we have designed Surgery and Medical protocols that can reestablish or improve specific mental states in patients and we can make Accurate diagnoses by looking at the physiology and function of brains and by analyzing the symptoms of a patient's mental states. We can predict mental malfunctions by studying the pathology of brains...and the list goes on.

How is it that there is this rotating of the blue cube that is happening with the firing of the neurons. — schopenhauer1

-brains are connected to a complex sensory system and they can store images. People who haven't observed such images are unable to reproduce them. The evolution in Arts , Music, Architecture, design etc verifies the importance of experiencing existing patterns in order to be able to modify and improve on them.
But your questions is a why question in disguise. In reality you are asking: why neurons have the ability to store and reproduce this optical stimuli. (why a silicon processor turn zeros and ones in complex pictures on a monitor). If they couldn't you wouldn't be able to see, remember and...ultimately survive.
The answer is simple your neurons can do that because you are the descendant of organisms with brains who could and they survived enough to pass this trait to the next generation.

It is superimposed, and forced into the picture but without explanation, only correlation with various obvious empirical stuff that isn't getting any closer to the answer to the question. — schopenhauer1

-Why gravity has the quality it has...why it pulls but never pushes. Why conductivity manifest solely in metals. Why electricity passing through silicon ICs can produce images on a TFT or LED panel.
Why molecules act differently in different temperatures.
The answer is always "because they do".

You are a modern Don Quixote who asks questions that are meaningless.

The physicalists have the hard problem of consciousness where consciousness is emergent from matter. — TheMadMan

There isn't such a thing as a hard problem of consciousness. Chalmer's "Hard problem" is nothing more than fallacious teleological "why" questions.
There are hard problems in Neuroscience on how specific characteristics of our conscious states arise but none of them are "why" questions.

So this question is more towards those who don't find physicalism convincing anymore: How does matter arise from consciousness? — TheMadMan

It doesn't. In order to be conscious of anything, Something must exist in the first place. To be conscious means to be conscious of something. By studying our world we observe properties of matter giving rise to the everything around us...not the other way our.

And in this case consciousness is the ontological primitive, I don't mean wakening consciousness — TheMadMan

"God did it" claims do not qualify as good philosophy! Making up substances/entities/agents/primitives by borrowing labels from observable processes is a medieval way to practice philosophy. I thought we were done with Phlogiston, Miasma,Orgone energy, Philosopher's stone etc etc.
An existential claim needs to be demonstrated not asserted.

There are many other questions that arise from that question so feel free to put the forward. — TheMadMan

Yes they are and its a trap. This is how Pseudo Philosophy sounds You begin with an unfounded assumption (an questionable existential claim...at best) and you drift away from the real goal of Philosophy.(arriving to a wise conclusion with epistemic and instrumental value).

Update: I'm not trying to argue with physicalists here.
As I said this is directed to those who consider the fundamental reality as non-material. — TheMadMan

Physicalism, materialism, idealism, non materialism are pseudo philosophical worldviews. Why even engaging those pseudo ideas in a philosophical thread?

I want to inquire how do you think matter comes to be out of consciousness/mind-at-large/sunyata/the-one/unmoved-mover/etc. — TheMadMan

That's a fallacy. (Poisoning the well) How can you even start a philosophical conversation with an epistemically and philosophically outdated , self refuting assumption? Well you can but its no longer a philosophical discussion.

unnecessarily pessimistic — FrancisRay

In what way? I don't see it as pessimistic at all or that anything is lost. What does a solution to the hard problem look like? I don't think there is a good one I can think of which doesn't imply some sort of dualism which I fundamentally disagree with.

This would be a hopeless approach for for the reasons you give. A fundamental theory must look beyond computation and intellection. — FrancisRay

I am not suggesting looking for a fundamental ontology based on computation but an explanation for why knowing about fundamental ontologies are out of reach.

I think the explanation is actually already there, it just has to be articulated and demonstrated. Like you said, experiences are primitive. We know experiences are related to the functional architecture of our brains. We can transfer or demonstrate the concept of this kind of primitiveness into the architectures and functional repertoires of A.I. We use A.I. to demonstrate the limits of what kinds of information is transferable from the environment, what kinds of concepts are created and what information they don't or can't include, and then see what kind of metacognitive consequences this has. Does a. A.I. come up with primitive phenomenal concepts on a purely functional basis that it cannot explain, similarly to our hard problem? This is a totally plausible research program even if it may not be possible right at this moment.

But if you think human beings are are intelligent machines or one of Chalmers' zombies then I'm afraid you're stuck with the hard problem for all eternity. This assumption renders the problem impossible. . — FrancisRay

Not sure what you mean here but functionally, yes we are just intelligent machines. We are just brains.

[Re Where does the simile "no matter how much drive around the moon, you won't get to Earth" refer to] That we are looking for a certain mechanism in how knowledge works. Just like driving on the surface of a planet can get you anywhere on the surface of the planet, but not to another planet. — ssu

Well, I undestood that in the first place. But what that has to do with the current topic, "Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?" Do you mean that the problem is about or has to do with going in circles or some kind of a vicious circle? Or maybe that scientists look at the subject of consciousness only from its surface, without being able to look "inside" it? The second one alludes also to the "black box" you are talking about.
Well, that can be the case too, but my undestanding of the problem is much simpler: they just look in the wrong place. Which is the brain. Because consciousness is not to be found in it. That's why I say that the HPoC does not actually exist. It's an illusory problem.

Earlier it lead people to think in a mechanically deterministic World, the Clockwork Universe and people simply to think that if we know all the laws of nature and all the revelant information, then we can extrapolate everything and make a correct model of the future. — ssu

Nicely put.

The problem is of course that we are part of that universe and so is our model, that also has an impact on reality. Thus we cannot make an objective, computable model of that reality. — ssu

There's an arguable point here: that "we are part of the universe". And it is were "dualists" and "non-dualists" separate themselves. (The quotation marks on the latter two terms mean that I use them very rarely and loosely, only for description purposes.)

The problem that we use the models that we have, which obviously aren't so good. After all, if they would be, there wouldn't be any discussion even in this Forum. — ssu

I agree.

If there would be a clear answer, someone would just remind the questioner to read 1.0 logic or math or even a book about philosophy! — ssu

:smile: No, it's certainly not textbook material. :smile:

I think the reason is that our logic that we use assumes clear, yet consciousness (just as learning) is all about subjectivity.The subjective and subjectivity cannot be put into a objective, computational model or algorithm. — ssu

Certainly. Tell that to scientists, esp. the neurophysicists and the neurobiologists.

That's why we end using the metaphor of a 'black box'. — ssu

:up:

I’m trying to understand exactly what this problem is about. From my understanding, the biggest mystery is that we currently don’t have nearly enough knowledge in neuroscience to explain why some neural networks lead to conscious experience and others don’t.
But what if we did have that knowledge, would it solve the problem then?

Imagine we found some sort of wave that certain neural networks create, that is related to consciousness: whenever we observe this specific wave, conscious experiences comes along as well. Would that solve the hard problem of consciousness or would it still leave philosophers wondering how exactly that wave represents the conscious experience?

If the problem remains, then we have the same problem with a lot of other things like time, space,… However we try to rationalize it, no one can explain time and space, it’s just there in everything we know, there are building blocks of our world. The only way we can picture a world without time is if we imagine that time would stop. But that thought itself includes time. And it's the same with consciousness: consciousness is there whenever we think about it, any explanation would be self referencing.

So my question is: is the root of the hard problem self reference or is it our critical lack of knowledge in that domain? — Skalidris

I'd say some of both.

Assuming it is even possible to record the full detail of the physical activity occurring in human brains without killing a person, we aren't near to having the technology to do so. So the lack of knowledge is a significant issue.

If we did have such knowledge, what would we be able to do with it? A physical system can't simulate a physical system as complex as itself. On physicalism there is no reason to think that we could consciously grasp the full details of what occurs in our brains.

Not to say that there isn't (or won't be) progress being made in improving our understanding, but that there will inevitably be limits.

No, the point of the argument is the hard problem. The hard problem has never claimed that consciousness is not physical, if we are regarding physical as matter and energy. Matter and energy has the capability to be conscious if organized right, just like water and hydrogen has the capability to be water if organized right. That's the point of the easy problem, to show that yes, they understand that consciousness is a physical manifestation of the brain. But will we ever be able to map consciousness objectively to what it is like to subjectively be conscious? That seems impossible. — Philosophim

I think the hard problem is not answering why consciousness is a physical manifestation, but why a physical manifestation should result in consciousness. And, it is quite unclear why any physical matter/energy arrangement should result in anything like consciousness. The consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms because consciousness is not a physical thing.

A year later, what's the status of this potential solution to the hard problem? — RogueAI

If anyone cares to go back to the start of this thread, the article which is is about is in Aeon Magazine, How Blindsight Answers the Hard Problem of Consciousness, Nicholas Humphrey. That is the proposed solution in question. There's also an interesting book about the topic, The Ancient Origins of Consciousness (not related to Nicholas Humphrey but exploring similar themes), the abstract of which states 'Combining evolutionary, neurobiological, and philosophical approaches allows Feinberg and Mallatt to offer an original solution to the “hard problem” of consciousness.'