Well, I'm arguing that they're two different aspects of the same overall problem. What I'm saying is that David Chalmer's rather awkward expression of 'what-it-is-like-ness' is really just a way of referring to 'being'.

When Chalmers said 'Facing Up to the Hard Problem', what he's saying is that science can't describe 'being' (or 'what it is like to be' something) because it only deals with objects that can be understood in third-person terms. His paper is explicitly about what can't be described in those terms, namely, subjective experience. Whereas, as I said before, the eliminative materialists argue as follows:

In Consciousness Explained, I described a method, heterophenomenology, which was explicitly designed to be 'the neutral path leading from objective physical science and its insistence on the third-person point of view, to a method of phenomenological description that can (in principle) do justice to the most private and ineffable subjective experiences, while never abandoning the methodological principles of science. — Daniel Dennett, The Fantasy of First-Person Science

So, from Chalmers' perspective, there is something that the eliminativists are not seeing. And I'm saying, what it is that they are not seeing corresponds with 'the blind spot of science'. It's another aspect of the same basic issue.

(Incidentally, this also means that 'the hard problem' is not a problem at all outside that particular context. It's simply a kind of rhetorical device.)

What circumstances do you think require a reason via those that do not? — Joshs

Reasons are human-related (when distinguished from mechanics). If ask "why did you smash that vase?" I'm not expecting "because my arm raised, my hand released it and that caused it to smash". I'm asking about your motives.

In Physics, chemistry, neurosciences...etc, the distinction doesn't make any sense. There are no motives, to 'why?' and 'how?' are the same question. As I alluded to earlier, about the closest we could get to a distinction is in evolutionary sciences where 'why?' refers to the evolutionary advantage, and 'how?' refers to the genetics, but even there it's just convention. we could ask 'how?' of evolution too and get a good set of theoretical answers.

Equally, if I asked a physicist 'why did the vase smash?', he might say 'because gravity pulls objects toward the earth and brittle things like vases smash on impact'. That's considered an answer. I could ask why both those laws are the case, but all I'd get is further, more fundamental, rules. At the end of my questioning there'd always be 'it just is'.

What the proponents of the 'hard' problem' seem to want is to forever maintain a type of answer which, by definition, will not be satisfied by mechanics or 'it just is', but since we have no such answer in any other field of human inquiry I cannot think of a reason why it's odd that we don't have one in neuroscience. I can't think what such an answer would even look like and neither, it seems, can any proponent of the problem.

Put differently, what kind of reality is it that cannot be potentially construed in an alternate way, so that we come to see it’s role within an order that did not exist to us previously? — Joshs

Roles within previously hidden orders are just more mechanics though (unless you're implying teleology). Say we found an entirely new function of the brain, something we didn't even know it did (let's say it taps into morphological fields) and we discover that consciousness plays an essential role in that. Does that answer the 'hard problem'? Apparently not, because if I theorise it plays an important role in survival (evolutionary advantage) that's not an answer apparently. So why would another role in another system be any more of an answer?

This is analogous to the origin of species before and after Darwin. Pre-Darwin, the answer to the question ‘Why are there different species’ was , because God made them arbitrarily unique in themselves. Beyond this, no deeper inquiry was attempted. After Darwin, the deeper ‘why’ question could be answered ‘ because each is the product of an overarching process that allows us to relate one to the other via temporal genesis. — Joshs

Exactly. Darwin found a mechanism for producing multiple species. The answer to the question 'why are there so many species?' was 'species evolve by natural selection and this process produces many species as a consequence of its mechanisms'. The answer to the question 'why doe we have consciousness?' is 'our experiences are produced by the brain activity and the mechanisms of the brain are such that experience is a consequence'... only apparently that isn't an answer either.

Don’t we choose one paradigm over other because changing the way we look at things ‘solves more puzzles’, as Kuhn put it? It seems to be that choosing the way that works by solving more puzzles, albeit differently, amounts to finding a why where there was none before. — Joshs

Yes, I agree, but you can't have your cake an eat it. Kuhn shows us how paradigms are discontinuous, they are not answers to the questions left by the previous one (that would merely be a continuation of the investigation within the previous paradigm) they a new ways of framing the problem such that those question become meaningless. So the mere possibility of a new paradigm doesn't mean the questions in the prior paradigm are unanswered, just that they might, in future become obsolete, or meaningless.

We don't go around saying that physics hasn't answered the question of acceleration due to gravity simply because a new paradigm might one day make that question obsolete. It has answered it (9.8 m/s/s) and a new paradigm might one day make that answer obsolete.

You have to explain how it is — hypericin

I am suspect that, like @Art48 and some others in this discussion, you are not clear on what the Hard Problem of Consciousness is supposed to be. It is not about describing in detail how consciousness works - that is supposed to be the Easy problem (hah!) The Hard problem is explaining "qualia" - first-person experience, what-it-is-likeness - in an objective, third-person scientific framework. So the framing already assumes a certain kind of dualism in the world: objective vs subjective, first-person vs third-person.

To compound the problem, those engaged in this discussion often aren't clear on just what they are looking for in an explanation. The complaint from the consciousness-can't-be-explained camp often comes down to nothing more specific than "consciousness can't be explained to my satisfaction." But what would satisfy them?

Isn't this just what the 'hard problem' is about? 15 pages of texts and it's back to square 1. — Wayfarer

If so, then the 'hard problem' seems to be defing what the problem is.

So far, it seems there's this 'feeling' people have that there's something there that isn't just neuronal activity, but it's not actually detectable in any way (other than this 'feeling' that it's there), and that neuroscience's failure to match its empirical models with this vague feeling is somehow a problem for neuroscience.

I was just saying this same thing. Worldview comes into play in the assumptions people make about it. — frank

Which renders the 'hard problem' meaningless. Why would empirical objects like neurons match some use of a word embedded in a certain culture? If we're not describing some.empirical object (or event) then it would be weird if some empirical objects matched up with it exactly. The 'hard problem' would emerge if there was a one-to-one correspondence. Then we'd have something odd to explain. That it doesn't is exactly what we'd expect. It's not even an easy problem, its not a problem at all.

If the so-called "hard problem ..." is not a scientific problem for neuroscience, as you admit,

So "the hard problem .." is not a scientific problem like I've stated.
— 180 Proof

No not really ... — Metaphysician Undercover

then your point about a "blindspot" is merely a tendentious non sequitur, MU.

I cannot disagree with the things you say, well, except the main point I made! :smile:
The passage I quoted shows clearly that the problem is scientific. Besides, why is it called a "problem" and for whom does it constitute a problem? Who stumbles on that problem and in fact it presents for them an "impasse"?

As I usually say, consciousness is not science material. The subject of consiousness is out of Science jurisdiction. Philosophy on the other hand has no problem studying and talking about consiousness. Consciousness does not present a problem for it. It is one of the subjects it studies, like all the other: existence, reason, knowledge, values, ethics etc. Moreover, everyone is welcome to participate in and present their views about it.

I brought up this subject because a lot of people in here and elsewhere consider and talk about the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" as if it is a philosophical one. Quite strangely so.

You define consciousness as "awareness of intelligibility", to be aware of our ability to understand. What about our ability to be aware on the first place....known in Science as Consciousness!(the ability to be aware of internal or environmental stimuli , to reflect upon them with different mind properties through the connections achieved by the Central Lateral thalamus i.e.intlligibility" and thus creating conscious content during a mental state.) — Nickolasgaspar

You misunderstand the definition. I mean the "ability to be aware" in operation. I add "of intelligibility," because we are never aware without being aware of something intelligible. This is important because the carrier of intelligibility is a neural state. I thank you for showing me how my definition can be misunderstood.

Usually, the brain does not "create" contents, but processes contents coming to it from the senses.\

Its looks like we have the practice of cherry picking a specific secondary mind property known as intelligibility or Symbolic thinking or Meaning — Nickolasgaspar

What you call "cherry picking," I call "focusing." My work is no more cherry-picking than any study that focuses one aspect of a whole to the exclusion of others.

Also, intelligibility is not "Symbolic thinking." It is a property that things (mostly outside the mind) must have if they are to be known. In other words, know-ability. If they could not be known, we could not know them.

a specific secondary mind property known as intelligibility — Nickolasgaspar

Intelligibility is typically a property of objects in nature that may be neurally encoded, not a property of the mind. In the mind, it is actually known, rather than merely intelligible, for consciousness makes merely intelligible contents actually known.

s this the Hard problem for you? because if that is the case a simple search will provide tones of known mechanisms on how the brain uses symbolic language and learning (previous experience) to introduce meaning to stimuli (internal or external). — Nickolasgaspar

No, it is not the Hard Problem. You need only refer to my article.

Do any of these articles show how we become aware of the contents the brain represents and processes? If not, none advances the reduction of the act of (as opposed to the contents of) awareness to a physical basis.

Are the facts you raised the following.
(1) The Fundamental Abstraction of natural science (attending to the object to the exclusion of the subject);
(2) The limits of a Cartesian conceptual space. — Nickolasgaspar

No, those are explanations for the problems. The problems I was referring to are:
1. Problems with verbal reports of consciousness (p. 98).
2. No neural structures correspond to propositional attitudes (p. 98).
3. Dennett's arguments against a physical reduction of consciousness (p. 98).
4. A causally impotent consciousness cannot enhance reproductive fitness, and consequent failure of an evolutionary explanation of its genesis (p. 99).
5. The inability to explain the genesis of environmental knowledge (p. 99).
6. The failure of David Lewis’s Humean supervenience because of one-to-many mappings of the physical to the intentional (pp. 99, 107).
7. The inability to account for purposeful human behavior (p. 99f).

I am a Methodological Naturalist and like science my frameworks and gaps of knowledge are shaped by our Scientific Observations and Logic solely based on Pragmatic Necessity , not because of an ideology. — Nickolasgaspar

I am also a methodological naturalist, with no need to capitalize because it is a method, not an ideology. Nothing in my article transgresses the bounds of methodological naturalism. The actual problem is you seem to be a closet physicalist -- unwilling to admit that the intentional theater of operations is just as natural as the physical theater. If you were not a closet physicalist, you would have no difficulty in being open to intentional realities. So, you might as well come out of the closet.

When we don't know, we admit we don't. We shouldn't go on and invent extra entities which are in direct conflict with the current successful Paradigm of Science. — Nickolasgaspar

On the other hand, when we do know, say by analyzing first-person experience, we should admit it.

The success of the current paradigm is impressive, but still limited. Note the seven unanswered difficulties above. Nothing I propose conflicts with any experimental fact, so please stop making such baseless claims. Instead, my suggested new paradigm increases the range of explained phenomena.

Yes a healthy functioning brain is a necessary and sufficient explanation for any property of mind known to us. — Nickolasgaspar

This is not the claim of a methodological naturalist, but of a dogmatic physicalist.

that's not a reason to overlook the huge body of knowledge that we've gained the last 35 years. — Nickolasgaspar

For me, it is not. For you, it seems to be reason to ignore all previous progress.

How can you be sure about the epistemic foundations of your ideas and positions when you are not familiar with the latest epistemology on the topic? How can you be sure that we haven't answered those questions when your philosophy is based on ideas and knowledge of the past? — Nickolasgaspar

All humans are liable to err, and no one can know everything. I opened this thread to allow people the opportunity to point out actual problems. My not knowing everything is not an actual problem with my work. If you find an actual mistake, please point it out.

All the knowledge we rely upon was obtained in the past. You seem to think it has an expiration date. Should I stop driving because the idea of wheels has expired? Can I still use counting? Thread?

IS it ok if I ask you to put all the problems in a list (bullets) so I can check them? — Nickolasgaspar

See above. The list is not intended to be exhaustive. It is just the problems I have identified.

yes they have been huge progress to the emerging physical nature of consciousness. — Nickolasgaspar

Please explain how neuroscience has come closer to understanding our awareness of (as opposed to the processing of) neurally encoded contents.

By default we know,can verify and are able to investigate only one realm, the Physical. — Nickolasgaspar

Congratulations on coming out of the closet!

Sadly, you are fundamentally wrong. We also know, and so can analyze, intentional operations. We know that we know and can speak of what we know.

In my academic links you can find tones of papers analyzing which(and how) mechanisms enable the brain to introduce content in our conscious states. — Nickolasgaspar

Again, the issue is not contents, but our awareness of contents.

Can you give me an example for every single problem? — Nickolasgaspar

I am not asking you to solve "every single problem," but to respond to my actual arguments. If you do not wish to do so, you are wasting my time.

Abstract concepts do not help complex topics like this one. — Nickolasgaspar

All science is based on abstract concepts, because it seeks to be universal, and universal ideas are abstract.

Plus you strawmanned me again with that supernatural first person data. — Nickolasgaspar

Not at all. I said that we are dealing with first person data, and you responded I was dealing with the supernatural.

Science tells us that the brain is necessary and sufficient to explain the phenomenon even if we have loads of question to answer — Nickolasgaspar

Science cannot possibly tell us any theory is sufficient to all phenomena, but only that it is sufficient for the phenomena for which it has been confirmed.

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

Critical lack of knowledge. The easy problems of consciousness are the ones our present scientific "toolbox" are equipped to handle, such as how sight works functionally. Not that this kind of research is easy, but just that it's within the concepts we're used to. The hard problem is explaining phenomenal consciousness, so going beyond the function of sight to why there is an experience associated with it. It's supposedly "hard" because we don't yet have a place in the physical sciences for the idea of phenomenal consciousness.

The truly hard problem of consciousness is that we can never objectively test what it is like to be conscious from the subjects view point. Think of it like this, "What is it like to be a rock?" We understand the atomic make up and composition of the rock. But what it is it like to BE the rock AS the rock? — Philosophim

I think this demonstrates a failure to grasp the point at issue. In David Chalmers original paper, 'Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness', nothing whatsover is said about what it is like to be an inanimate object such as a rock, as the paper is about the nature of experience. I take it that neither Chalmers nor anyone here will claim that rocks are subjects of experience.

The salient passage in the Chalmer's paper is this:

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.

You may have addressed it, but you are still using an inaccurate definition of the HPoC. As J pointed out early on: — Patterner

And I'll note again, the only reason we cannot figure out how physical processes give rise to the subjective experiences of the mind is because we have no way of objectively knowing what it is to hold that subjective experience, because you must BE that being having that subjective experience.

It is NOT that we don't understand that the brain causes subjective experiences. We know portions of the brain that affect the different interpretation of sensations we have. We can stimulate areas of the brain and a person can say, "When you do that, I imagine a dog." What we cannot do is know what they are experiencing directly when they say, "I imagine a dog". When a patient takes a particular type of medication, they feel woozy. This is an objective fact. Do we know what its like for the patient to have the subjective experience they have when they say, "I feel woozy?" No. So we can never objectively note what 'woozy' is as a subjective experience, only an observed behavior. That's the crux of the hard problem.

These things change various aspects of how the brain works, and, therefore, what we subjectively experience. They don't address how it is that we subjectively experience them at all. That's the HPoC. — Patterner

No, that's the easy problem.
"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."

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43853850#:~:text=For%20Chalmers%2C%20the%20easy%20problem,are%20accompanied%20by%20conscious%20experience.

And why is it hard to find why these functions are accompanied by conscious experience? Because we cannot know what it is like to BE that other conscious experience. Consciousness as a behavior is simple to observe. Consciousness as a subjective experience can only be known by being that subjective experience.

So when we give a drug that treats schizophrenia, we know that it works by behavior. We don't know what its like to be that person having schizophrenia, or what they are feeling as a subjective experience when they take the medicine. That's it.

It is not in any way an implication that the brain is not the source of consciousness. It does not in any way negate the behavior based approach to consciuosness and mental health that has worked for decades. It does not negate the fact that the brain causes your subjective experiences. Its just noting that because we can never know what its like for another being to experience their own subjective experience, we cannot objectively match brain state "X, Y, Z" and say, "Whenever X, Y, Z is matched, all people will experience the exact same subjective sensation of wooziness." We might see they all have the same behavior, but we can never objectively know what each individuals subjective experience of 'woozy' is.

The decisive error in thinking now occurs when we swap or mix the levels of description. So if we suddenly switch from the physiological to the psychological level and construct a causal relationship between the two that cannot exist in reality. So if we claim that physiology is the basis of psychology, or that the excited group of neurons causes the conscious experience of red. — Wolfgang

It's not an error. The point being made in the argument is that the physical description doesn't account for the subjective experience, that it leaves out or fails to account for the subjective experience of colour. It is a fact that experience can be described from the physiological perspective or from the first-person perspective. Comparing them is not an error.

This change of perspective is particularly treacherous because it often happens unnoticed. — Wolfgang

Not in the least. In David Chalmer's original paper it is made perfectly explicit - he calls it out.

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 problem of experience

The hard problem of consciousness can therefore be seen as a misunderstanding of the evolutionary function and development of consciousness. What we perceive as a subjective experience is essentially the evolution of a mechanism that ensures that relevant stimuli are registered and processed in an adaptive way. — Wolfgang

Daniel Dennett argues from evolutionary biology in support of eliminative materialism, which seems to be the attitude you favour. However, evolutionary psychology is also the basis of a book called The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from our Eyes, by cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman, which argues for a radically different conclusion. He argues that our perceptions of reality are not accurate reflections of the world as it truly is. Instead, he proposes that evolution has shaped our perceptions to prioritize survival. According to Hoffman, organisms that perceive the world in a way that maximizes fitness, rather than accuracy, are more likely to survive and reproduce. This leads to the conclusion that what we see, hear, and experience is not an objective representation of the world as it is, but a kind of 'user interface' designed to hide the complexity of reality and present simplified, useful representations to aid survival.

Hoffman builds his case using evolutionary game theory, demonstrating that perceptions that accurately represent reality are not favored by natural selection. He further critiques the conventional view of physicalism—the idea that the physical world is the foundation of all reality—arguing that space, time, and objects themselves are human constructs rather than fundamental aspects of the universe. Instead, he suggests that consciousness itself might be fundamental, proposing a theory in which reality consists of a network of conscious agents interacting.

The moral of the story being, don't lean to hard on evolutionary biology in defense of scientific realism, if that's the intention. It may not take the strain.

Ok, please explain to me why we can't talk about all this without using the word 'observer'? — jkop

I was hoping that, by working together on a version that didn't use subjective words, the reason would become clear. But OK, I'll be didactic: Descriptions of consciousness in physicalist terms presuppose the existence, as conscious states, of the phenomena they're meant to explain. (This excludes versions of physicalism that simply deny the existence of consciousness, but that's not your thesis, nor mine.)

Let's look at your original thesis again:

Moreover, conscious states such as visual experiences have a hierarchical structure in the sense that the experience is not solely a biological phenomenon. It is also causally constrained by the behavior of light, and influenced by the observer's psychology, sociology, language and culture. All of these can be described, but none of them is a complete description of the experience. However, the lack of a single complete description is hardly a problem. — jkop

We need a physicalist translation, or reduction, of "experience," for starters. In what sense is visual experience biological? Do we know how our brains create the illusion of the Cartesian theater that characterizes subjective experience? Not at all. You can say, "Someday we will," and I agree that's likely, but at the moment it's unsolved, and it's not a matter of lacking a description, as you put it. We lack any theory at all about how and why it happens.

Even more concerning, the use of "observer" postulates an "I", a subjective point of view. This, for me, is the really hard part of the hard problem. We can't just help ourselves to the term "observer," in trying to explain or describe consciousness. On the evidence, there's nothing in biology, psychology, sociology, language, or culture that even hints at an explanation for a first-person point of view. In fact, you'd expect the opposite -- these living systems are so beautifully and intricately evolved that they seem quite capable of doing their thing like zombies, or robots, with no "there" there. Why isn't that what happened, and what did happen? Again, we can't just say "And along came consciousness . . ." or "Then consciousness emerged as a property . . . " because these are just placemarkers for our inability to solve the hard problem (yet).

Whew. But I really think it's more useful to try it yourself, just as an experiment. Try taking the above quoted passage and rewriting it without any subject-based or experiential terms. I think you'll wind up with something that either doesn't talk about consciousness at all, or else merely defines it as physical, or assumes it to be physical, rather than explaining it.

Philosophy Bites Podcast

The podcast is only 15 minutes. The two hosts interview Keith Frankish about his position on the hard problem. Keith does agree the problem is difficult:

We can tell quite a detailed story about the light rays hitting your eye, being focused by the lens in your eye onto your retina. About the signal that sends to the optic nerve to your visual cortex. About the processing that happens there. The various forms of discriminations made by the visual system. But how, in the course of that, does the experience arise? — Keith Frankish

Which has come up in a couple recent threads, particularly the Reading Dennett's "Quining Qualia". Frankish goes on to say he used to think that consciousness was just a way to represent the world:

Maybe the experience you had of looking at the green leaf , the way it felt, was just a way of representing the world. Representing the fact that there is a leaf out there that has certain characterists. That reflects light a certain way. And maybe that's all there is to it. That's one strategy. And it's a strategy I used to think would work. But now, I'm not so sure about that. I've come to think that qualia are really too mysterious to be explained in physical terms. — Keith Frankish

So instead, he suggests that qualia are an illusion. By this, he does not mean the experience of the green leaf itself (or red apple, etc). He just doesn't think the experience has any properties of qualia. It just seems to be that way.

What I'm suggesting is you'e under an illusion about the nature of the internal world. About what's involved in your having that experience. — Keith Frankish

This seems to accord with what Dennett has been arguing. The problem is Dennett doesn't come out and directly say that, while Frankish does explicitly say that of course we do have an experience of the green leaf.

I don't think that consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness is what we're all familiar with. That's not an illusion. The question is what's involved in having those experiences and those sensations. — Keith Frankish

So what accounts for the illusion that conscious experience has properties of qualia? Keith suggests that one the one hand there is the perceptual account. But then there is a separate internal monitoring of the perceptual processes that gives rise to the sense of a rich, internal world. And the reason for this illusion is to make ourselves and other humans feel special. The seeming hardness is a feature of the illusion, with the implication being one of survival and ethical considerations.

So then, the debate about the hard problem would turn on whether qualia can be explained away as an illusion. My issue is still how to account for the sensations of color, sound, etc.

Edit: link updated to the correct podcast.

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?

I'm missing your point here because I said that Science will need to have the Explanation for the How and Why, and not merely the fact that it is. — SteveKlinko

OK. I misunderstood what you were saying. To me there is data, and the data might show that there is intentionality in the neurons, and there is theory, which would explain the data in terms of how and why. But, you agree that there is no experimental test for finding intentionality in neurons, so, there can be no data to explain. That leaves us with the question: What kind of evidentiary support can there be for a theory that supposedly explains something that cannot be observed? If this theory predicts that some set of physical circumstances will produce intentionality in neurons, and we cannot observe intentionality in neurons, doesn't that make the theory unfalsifiable, and so unscientific? In short, I have difficulty in seeing how such a theory can be part of science.

I disagree that we know anything about what Intentionality is. We know we have it, but what really is it? This is similar to how we Experience the Redness of Red. We certainly know that we have the Experience but we have no idea what it is. — SteveKlinko

If you mean that we cannot reduce these things to a physical basis, that is the very point I am making. But that is not the same as not knowing what a thing is. If we can define intentionality well enough for other people to recognize it when they encounter it, we know what it is.

I think you need to ask yourself what you mean by knowing "what a thing is?" What things are is fully defined by what they can do. If we know what things can do -- how they scatter light, interact with other objects, and so on -- we know all there is to know about what they are. We pretty much know what various kinds of intentions do. So, in what way do we not know what they are?

If you have an intention to do something then that intention must ultimately be turned into a Volitional command to the Brain that will lead to the firing of Neurons that will activate the muscles of the Physical Body to do something. I believe you called that a Committed Intention. — SteveKlinko

Agreed. And that means that committed intentions must modify the laws that control how our neurophysiology works. How else could they do what they do?

When you say the Laws of Nature are Intentional, it sounds like you are talking about some kind of Intelligent Design. I'm not sure how this is even relevant to the discussion. — SteveKlinko

I am not an advocate of Intelligent Design. I think it gravely misunderstands the laws of nature. ID assumes that God is not intelligent enough to create a cosmos that effects His ends without recurrent diddling. That is insulting to God.

The arguments I give in my paper for the laws of nature being intentional are based solely on our empirical knowledge, and do not assume the existence of an intending God. The relevance here of the laws being intentional is that they are in the same theater of operations as human commitments. Since they are in the same theater of operation, our commitments can affect the general laws, perturbing them to effect our ends. Material operations, on the other hand, are not in the same theater of operation and so cannot affect the laws of nature.

When you hang your argument for eliminating the Hard Problem on an abstract Intentions concept being Material you are setting up a straw man. — SteveKlinko

This seems confused. First, I an not saying intentions are material. Second, the Hard Problem is about the production of consciousness (of intellect) and not, in the first instance about volition (will).

We have no intentions without consciousness, which is awareness of present intelligibility. It makes what was merely intelligible actually known. The brain can process data in amazing ways, but processing data does not raise data from being merely intelligible to being actually known. To make what is intelligible actually known requires a power that is not merely potential, but operational. So, nothing that is merely intelligible, that is only potentially an intention, can produce an intention. Thus, data encoded in the brain cannot make itself actually known -- it cannot produce consciousness.

What is already operational in the intentional theater is awareness -- what Aristotle called the agent intellect. It is when we turn our awareness to present intelligibility that the neurally encoded contents become known. So, while the brain can produce the contents of awareness, it cannot produce awareness of those contents.

Even if your Intention argument is true, this Redness Experience Explanatory Gap must be solved. This is what the Hard Problem is really all about. — SteveKlinko

If that were so, then every instance of consciousness, even the most abstract, would involve some quale. It does not. So, quale are not an essential aspect of consciousness. On the other hand, there is no instance of consciousness without awareness and some intelligible object. So, the essential features of consciousness are awareness/subjectivity and the the contents of awareness/objectivity.

Of course there are qualia, but we do know what they are. All qualia are the contingent forms of sensory awareness. We know, for example, that redness is the form of our awareness of certain spectral distributions of light. There is nothing else to know about redness. If you think there is, what would it be?

I'm missing your point here because I said that Science will need to have the Explanation for the How and Why, and not merely the fact that it is. — SteveKlinko
OK. I misunderstood what you were saying. To me there is data, and the data might show that there is intentionality in the neurons, and there is theory, which would explain the data in terms of how and why. But, you agree that there is no experimental test for finding intentionality in neurons, so, there can be no data to explain. That leaves us with the question: What kind of evidentiary support can there be for a theory that supposedly explains something that cannot be observed? If this theory predicts that some set of physical circumstances will produce intentionality in neurons, and we cannot observe intentionality in neurons, doesn't that make the theory unfalsifiable, and so unscientific? In short, I have difficulty in seeing how such a theory can be part of science. — Dfpolis

That's how bad our understanding of Consciousness is. We can't even conceive that there could be a Scientific explanation for it. But I think there probably is a Scientific explanation. We just need some smart Mind to figure it out someday in the future.

I disagree that we know anything about what Intentionality is. We know we have it, but what really is it? This is similar to how we Experience the Redness of Red. We certainly know that we have the Experience but we have no idea what it is. — SteveKlinko
If you mean that we cannot reduce these things to a physical basis, that is the very point I am making. But that is not the same as not knowing what a thing is. If we can define intentionality well enough for other people to recognize it when they encounter it, we know what it is.

I think you need to ask yourself what you mean by knowing "what a thing is?" What things are is fully defined by what they can do. If we know what things can do -- how they scatter light, interact with other objects, and so on -- we know all there is to know about what they are. We pretty much know what various kinds of intentions do. So, in what way do we not know what they are? — Dfpolis

We know what they are from our subjective Conscious experience of them. But since we don't know what Consciousness is, in the first place, being Conscious of them is not an explanation.

If you have an intention to do something then that intention must ultimately be turned into a Volitional command to the Brain that will lead to the firing of Neurons that will activate the muscles of the Physical Body to do something. I believe you called that a Committed Intention. — SteveKlinko
Agreed. And that means that committed intentions must modify the laws that control how our neurophysiology works. How else could they do what they do? — Dfpolis

When you say the Laws of Nature are Intentional, it sounds like you are talking about some kind of Intelligent Design. I'm not sure how this is even relevant to the discussion. — SteveKlinko
I am not an advocate of Intelligent Design. I think it gravely misunderstands the laws of nature. ID assumes that God is not intelligent enough to create a cosmos that effects His ends without recurrent diddling. That is insulting to God.

The arguments I give in my paper for the laws of nature being intentional are based solely on our empirical knowledge, and do not assume the existence of an intending God. The relevance here of the laws being intentional is that they are in the same theater of operations as human commitments. Since they are in the same theater of operation, our commitments can affect the general laws, perturbing them to effect our ends. Material operations, on the other hand, are not in the same theater of operation and so cannot affect the laws of nature. — Dfpolis

I guess you are making a distinction now between Laws of Nature that apply to Intentional Phenomenon and Laws of Nature that apply to Material Phenomenon. So you should not say the Laws of Nature are Intentional but only a subset of the Laws of Nature that apply to Intentionality are Intentional.

When you hang your argument for eliminating the Hard Problem on an abstract Intentions concept being Material you are setting up a straw man. — SteveKlinko
This seems confused. First, I an not saying intentions are material. Second, the Hard Problem is about the production of consciousness (of intellect) and not, in the first instance about volition (will).

We have no intentions without consciousness, which is awareness of present intelligibility. It makes what was merely intelligible actually known. The brain can process data in amazing ways, but processing data does not raise data from being merely intelligible to being actually known. To make what is intelligible actually known requires a power that is not merely potential, but operational. So, nothing that is merely intelligible, that is only potentially an intention, can produce an intention. Thus, data encoded in the brain cannot make itself actually known -- it cannot produce consciousness.

What is already operational in the intentional theater is awareness -- what Aristotle called the agent intellect. It is when we turn our awareness to present intelligibility that the neurally encoded contents become known. So, while the brain can produce the contents of awareness, it cannot produce awareness of those contents. — Dfpolis

I don't think the Brain is the Consciousness aspect. But rather I think the Brain connects to a Consciousness aspect.

Even if your Intention argument is true, this Redness Experience Explanatory Gap must be solved. This is what the Hard Problem is really all about. — SteveKlinko
If that were so, then every instance of consciousness, even the most abstract, would involve some quale. It does not. So, quale are not an essential aspect of consciousness. On the other hand, there is no instance of consciousness without awareness and some intelligible object. So, the essential features of consciousness are awareness/subjectivity and the the contents of awareness/objectivity.

Of course there are qualia, but we do know what they are. All qualia are the contingent forms of sensory awareness. We know, for example, that redness is the form of our awareness of certain spectral distributions of light. There is nothing else to know about redness. If you think there is, what would it be? — Dfpolis

I think every instance of Consciousness actually does involve some sort of Quale. Things that are sub Conscious of course do not involve any Qualia. Even the sense of Awareness itself has a certain feel to it. The experience of Understanding itself has a feel to it. There are all kinds of Qualia besides sensory Qualia.

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. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I'm repeating myself (again) - sorry, not the sharpest knife in the drawer myself.

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.

Given the above, have a look at what sleep and awake states imply:

1. Brain activity present (person is awake) and all mental states are present, including subjective mental states

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

From 1 and 2 we can discern that the only difference between the presence and absence of mental states (including subjective mental states) is the presence and absence of brain activity. This, in my humble opinion, proves that an explanation for mental states, even subjective mental states can be found in brain activity alone. There's no need to hypothesize a non-physical mind substance at all.

As an analogy think of a person C who has zero knowledge of electricity and is given an on/off switch and a bulb with a working circuit. Think of brain states as the on/off switch and all mental states, including subjective mental states, as the glow of a bulb.

When the switch is on (brain activity present-awake), the bulb glows (mental states including subjective ones present); when the switch is off (brain activity absent-asleep), the bulb stops glowing (mental states includint subjective mental states absent).

For C there exists an explanatory gap as he doesn't know how the switch effects the bulb's behavior due to his ignorance of electricity - this is exactly like the explanatory gap you mention: the hard problem of consciousness.

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).

There's no need for C to look for an explanation elsewhere - he needs to examine the on/off switch more carefully. Similarly, the person trying to explain mental states, including subjective mental states, doesn't need to entertain the possibility of dualism being true; all he needs to do is examine brain activity more closely for the correct explanation.

The hard problem is not that something cannot be explained, but that it hasn't been. Your OP is mainly assertions that the brain covers subjective experience. But that is not an explanation of how consciousness arises within otherwise non-experiencing matter - as many physicalists think of it.

Saying that the brain is all one needs does not solve the hard problem.

I already did. Brain activity (something physical) both sufficient and necessary for qualia . :chin: — TheMadFool

That doesn't explain the how.

You are arguing in favor of a monist physicalism. That's not the hard problem, that's a different issue.

I also don't think your argument holds, even for that. We do have subjective experiences in sleep. We can even have the experience of non-dreaming sleep. We don't remember that, generally, but memory is a specific cognitive function. Brute experiencing may not need to make memories.

Compare the above scenario to the fact that when there's brain activity, there's qualia and when there's no brain activity, there's no qualia. — TheMadFool

There is always brain acitivity unless the person is dead. Further the coffee is added to the situation. The brain is not added to the situation.

But again, that situation is not parallel to the hard problem of consciousness.

The hard problem of coffee is HOW the coffee keeps you awake not THAT it keeps you awake.

While it may sound like advanced science, it's really pretty simple. As the brain creates adenosine it binds to adenosine receptors. That binding of adenosine causes drowsiness by slowing nerve cell activity. The adenosine binding also causes the brain's blood vessels to dilate, most likely to let in more oxygen during sleep.

Caffeine looks just like adenosine to a nerve cell. Caffeine therefore binds to the adenosine receptor. But unlike adenosine, it doesn't slow down the cell's activity. As a result, the cell can't identify adenosine -- the caffeine is taking up all the receptors. Instead of slowing down because of the adenosine's effect, nerve cells speed up. The caffeine also causes the brain's blood vessels to constrict. It is, after all, blocking adenosine's ability to open them up. This is why some headache medicines contain caffeine -- if you have a vascular headache, caffeine will close down the blood vessels and offer relief.

Now, you have increased neuron firing in the brain. When the pituitary gland sees all of this activity, it thinks an emergency must be occurring. The pituitary, therefore, releases hormones to tell the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline (epinephrine). Adrenaline, the "fight or flight" hormone, has a number of effects on the body:

Pupils dilate.
Breathing tubes open (which is why people suffering from severe asthma attacks sometimes can be injected with epinephrine).
The heart beats faster.
Muscles tighten up, ready for action.
Blood pressure rises.
Blood flow to the stomach slows.
The liver releases sugar into the bloodstream.

This explains why, after drinking a big cup of coffee, your muscles tense up, you feel excited, your hands get cold and you can feel your heart beat increasing.

So, all that would make it harder to sleep. We know the mechanism. That brains are present when there is qualia (in us, but perhaps not limited to those times) does not mean we know the answer to the hard problem consciousness. We don't know why the make up of the brain leads to qualia. And we also do not know if qualia are limited to brains. I've given some reasons for this last already.

Philosophy Bites Podcast

The podcast is only 15 minutes. The two hosts interview Keith Frankish about his position on the hard problem. — Marchesk

I think you meant to link to the podcast here from Oct 11, 2014. The podcast you linked to is on Conscious Thought from Jan 15, 2017 (and is 12 mins long).

The Conscious Thought podcast made perfect sense to me and qualia wasn't mentioned at all. Whereas in the hard problem/qualia podcast, Frankish seems to accept qualia as an apparent phenomena to explain (i.e., which he goes on to say is an illusion), rather than rejecting wholesale the subject/object dualism that gives rise to it. Unlike Frankish, it doesn't seem to me that we experience qualia, so there's nothing to explain (or explain away). Instead, it seems to me that we experience the world, which includes sunsets and red apples and human beings. And those are the things that we seek to explain.

Must we insist that explaining consciousness at a mechanistic level any easier than explaining the subjective first-person experience aspects of consciousness? 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. — Wheatley

The easy problem is actually a lot of problems, explaining all sorts of cognitive stuff/behaviors/responses. It might actually be harder to complete. But it is different from the hard problem (so far). But in the end perhaps a non-dualist explanation will be arrived at. I think we can distinguish between the two problem types without assuming that they need different ontologies. I mean, perhaps they need different ontologies, perhaps not.

One solution that is a monism is a kind of panpsychism. Perhaps all matter has an experiential facet. The various cognitive abilities and functions depend on the complexity and structure of the matter, but at some base level there is interiority in all matter. So, consciousness is not some exception, but rather a facet of matter and there is no need for dualism. (I am not suggesting this as the solution to be critiqued and defended per se, but rather just to say a solution could be monist)

Yet it seems to me that psychology and dogs are physical phenomena — Manuel

I for one, do not share this intuition.

By saying "mental", I'm following Galen Strawson here, we merely want to say that within physical reality, which encompasses all reality, we are focusing on the mental aspects of the physical, instead of the chemical aspects. This emphatically is not "eliminitavism", or anything like that, the physical is not physics, it's everything. — Manuel

Dualists and panpsychists would not accept this assertion given the hard problem.


The argument usually being made, if I understand it, Is that in order to fully explain consciousness in physical terms you ought to be able to do it entirely with the physical actions of the brain. In other words, physical laws and chemistry. At least if I have understood it.

Physicalists nowadays either hope that sometime in the future there will be such an explanation due to the advance of science or they deny that there is a problem at all. However, people who do not have that trust in physicalism have reason enough to bet on panpsychism or dualism if they so please.

You'd need to explain why there needs to be something else besides the physical. So I don't see any inconsistency here. — Manuel

Well they would refer to the hard, easy problems. I might even risk my skin and say that hard emergence of consciousness from matter is evenly absurd and magical as the interaction problem dualism faces. And since you say here that you do not deny that there is mental, a la Dennet, I cannot see how you go around it.

Do you agree that understanding something means being able to manipulate it?
The more we understand something the better we do manipulate it?
With this I mean that we don't even need to be able to explain something in words, translate it into language, invent new categories or refer to intuition. If we are able to manipulate, to control it, we do understand it.
Then we can be more or less successful to explain it, sooner or later we explain them, but many times this language-based-explanation takes a long time because the culture and social context do not have the categories or because it is too biased but cultural inheritances.
Why do I say this here?
Because if you agree somewhat with this principle and we look at recent works of neuroscience on consciousness and the self (by Georg Northoff, Stanilas Dehaene, Greg Gage, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, and a long long etc...) we realize we're capable to manipulate the brain in such a way that we can create well defined states of consciousness: slowly dissolve the self, change personality, increase and decrease certain types of intelligence, etc.I'm talking about heterophenomenology, making our subjective world an object of science.
This shows incredibly successful and powerful but it goes so fast that our language, our culture has not been able to absorb it yet.
(ANOTHER typical EXAMPLE: same as the quantum mechanics world... we use more and more words like entanglement, superposition of states, qubits, symplectic phase etc. ... hard to explain but scientists understand it because engineers are able to manipulate them and create new technologies out of it)

Not only the results of the manipulations of our brain are a hard proof of the progress and understanding in this discipline but the progress in Artificial Intelligence and deep learning. The features of convolution networks together with the discoveries of the people I mention above makes us realize that we're going beyond certain naif intuitions like the "easy/hard problem" of Chalmers.

For me the "easy/hard problem" approach has already been dissolved, it is dead.

Your continual invocation of 'woo of the gaps' only illustrates that you're not grasping problem at hand. It's a hard problem for physicalism and naturalism because of the axioms they start from, not because there is no solution whatever. Seen from other perspectives, there is no hard problem, it simply dissolves. It's all a matter of perspective. But seen from the perspective of modern scientific naturalism, there is an insuperable problem, because its framework doesn't accomodate the reality of first-person experience, a.k.a. 'being', which is why 'eliminative materialism' must insist that it has no fundamental reality. You're the one obfuscating the problem, because it clashes with naturalism - there's an issue you're refusing to see which is as plain as the nose on your face. — Wayfarer

[edit: this is directed to those who accept the narrative of phenomenology]

I'd like to pick up from here.

The issue I want to talk about is not the scientific mapping, or the lack thereof, of subjective experience.
Not the measurement either. Those aren't the problems. The issue is that the mind, under phenomenology, is not allowed to have presuppositions -- presuppositions of the cause of the sense impressions. We both know that images reaching our retina can be measured. We also know that quantum entities aren't always perceivable, with or without our senses or an instrument. But in both cases, we aren't allowed to admit those facts in our narrative.

Tell me, does that sound complete to you when it comes to the subjective experience? It only takes a grain of sand to know the world out there. (Not sure if I'm using this saying correctly from the William Blake poem). Our connection to the outside world requires only a grain of sand. Phenomenology engenders an unsettling feeling in any one contemplating this problem.

I'd say, do not artificially cut off the narrative about the subjective experience by banning presuppositions of the material world. Let the subjective experience extend to the cause. Let us stabilize our idealization of the world by confirming that the material world exists.

I'm not satisfied with the "it's all a matter of perspective" statement. There's got to be something more compelling that this.

David Chalmers: 'First-person experience is such that it cannot be fully described in third-person terms. Experience is inherently subjective, it has a quality of "something it is like to be...", and that quality is inherently irreducible to an objective description.' — Wayfarer

A coupla points:

1. Yep, there's a what it is like to be conscious we can't ignore. This is inaccessible to another person. So, if I were a scientist researching consciousness, my research would ineluctably be incomplete.

However, I don't agree with the characterization of this issue as the "hard" problem of consciousness. To me, that description would've made sense if and only if it's the case that there's something inexplicable, in physical terms, about consciousness. That, I'm afraid, isn't the case.

If a scientist could find a way to observe the first-person subjective side of consciousness, the so-called "hard" problem of consciousness doesn't preclude a physical explanation.

So, the "hard" problem of consciousness does not rule out physicalism. All it does is show us a limitation of scientific methods/techniques. So, it's not the case that nonphysicalism is true, it's just that physicalism can't prove itself. To then conclude that nonphysicalism is true or that there's something to it is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

2. What about empathy and the golden rule? It appears that a person can gain knowledge/insight into another person's state of mind. In other words, a third-person point of view of a first-person point of view.

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. — Janus

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.

I did a redraft, hope this is clearer:

Consciousness

What we perceive, feel, and think is experienced from a unique internal perspective. Descartes was the first to envisage consciousness as being the experiential mental phenomena separated from the physical realm. In doing so, he invited beliefs in a metaphysical self that has confounded philosophical thinking and given those predisposed to this sort of concept a basis for which to justify beliefs in all sorts of ethereal things. What is needed is a fundamental explanation of consciousness that can be easily understood to demystify this concept and provide a platform for rational, logically minded contemplation.


1. The ‘hard problem of consciousness’

As proposed by Chalmers, this includes the inner aspect of thought and perception. The way things feel when we experience visual sensations, music, happiness or the mediative quality of a moment lost in thought. That seemingly undiscernible thing within ourselves that coalesces into a unique individual.

This is opposed to the ‘easy problem of consciousness’ where objective mechanisms of the cognitive system are reducible to physical processes. These include discriminating sensory stimuli, reacting to stimuli, speech, intellectual thought and integrating information to control behaviour.

For me it seems intuitive that the ‘easy stuff’ would be harder to explain than the ‘hard stuff’ that we all have a direct and personal relationship. But that’s me.


2. Dual perspectivism

Consciousness combines two perspectives of ourselves; our inner view and external view. By combining these two perspectives we are able to identify our capabilities and competencies and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of our environment and gain a competitive advantage. This likely creates an evolutionary priority effect.

I think that it is likely that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives is actually what we experience as consciousness. Our internal quasi-perceptual awareness combined with what we are able to perceive directly.

As an example, you may feel an internal apprehension that someone has broken into your house on the basis of externally perceiving a broken window and an empty space where the TV used to be.


3. Internal and External Environments

If there is anything that is steadfast and unchanging, it is change itself. Change is inevitable, and organisms that don't accept change and make adjustments to their behaviour to keep up with changes are doomed to fail. There are events or situations that occur that affect an organism in a positive or negative way. These events or situations can have either a positive or a negative impact on an organism and are called environmental factors.

There are two types of environmental factors: internal environmental factors and external environmental factors. Internal environmental factors are events that occur within an organism. Generally speaking, internal environmental factors are easier to control than external environmental factors. Some examples of internal environmental factors are:

• Shift in priorities
• Morale
• Evolutionary priority effects
• Other issues

External environmental factors are events that take place outside of the organism and are harder to predict and control. External environmental factors can be more dangerous for an organism given the fact they are unpredictable, hard to prepare for, and often bewildering. Some examples of external environmental factors are:

• Changes to economy (quid pro quo)
• Threats from competition
• Social factors
• Accepted normalities
• The organism’s species itself

Consciousness allows a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis to take place that looks at internal and external factors that can affect an organism. Internal factors are your strengths and weaknesses. External factors are the threats and opportunities.

This is not a linear but a dynamic, experiential and qualitative process. This process is a balance between internal subjective priorities, perceived external factors and the mental attitudes we ascribe to both of these factors. This enables an individual to appraise their positive and negative attributes regarding a particular goal or situation, the impact of external factors on the goal or situation, and guide them to make rational choices based on this analysis.


4. Observations

An observation I will make is that newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as ‘basic consciousness’ but they still have to mature to reach the level of adult consciousness. This would seem to draw a correlation between physical growth and consciousness.

Mental illness is also worthy of note in that a person may experience drastically altered mental states or qualitative experiences of both external and internal environments. This can be transitional or more permanent and is known to be the product of treatable physical processes in the brain.

Having both a healthy internal and external appreciation of self and environment would then seem to be integral to consciousness. I contend that consciousness itself is just an abstract word for this process.


5. Conclusions

So, there would seem to be an evolutionary advantage in having both ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ consciousness and a correlation to physical development and disease. Associated mental attitudes we use to conduct a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis are merely a part of our consideration of internal and external environments.

Furthermore, it is conceivable that any organism that can construct a concurrent internal and external viewpoint is able to identify capabilities and the direction of how best to use these in order to meet the demands of their environment and gain a competitive advantage; be conscious.

Given the above, I do not believe that it is reasonable to assume that consciousness is a metaphysical entity separate to the physical body. I hope the above goes some way to providing a fundamental way of thinking about consciousness that somewhat demystifies consideration of this topic.


6. Comments

In response to the below questions regarding the contemplation of who we are and consciousness I provided the below answers:

"What actually are we? Where are we?"
We are lucky, our bodies occupy the only region of space in the universe where we exist.

“How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people's experience of consciousness?”
That’s a complex question because, more importantly, people have varying views on what consciousness is. You could be talking with someone who believes that they have a metaphysical presence separate from their body whilst you might think your consciousness is a function of brain activity inseparable from the body. A fundamental mutual understanding of what consciousness is is required before this question can be sensibly answered.

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? Can this be seen as answering it, — schopenhauer1

The point of the hard problem is to call attention to the fact that the subjective aspect of consciousness needs an explanation.

It may be that it's a result of evolution. We first need to understand how it works, though. After that we can work on how evolution is involved.

Evolution doesn't provide the best/only answer to a challenge. It was just the first good answer to come along; whatever that happened to be. Anything that improves on the previous solution will be accepted. So when someone says "because evolution" to the hard problem, I think it is like they are asking: "Why can't the way it currently exists be one of the possible solutions to the challenge?"

Our brain includes many different parts. Some of those parts need to compete with each other; some have no need for competition. For example, a beating heart is always superior to a non-beating heart. So our brain does not bother to give us conscious control over our heartbeat.

Other areas of the brain need to compete with each other. Fear and hunger, for example. Sometimes the best strategy for life is to eat a slice of pizza. At other times, the best strategy for life is to run from a Grizzly bear. If our brain cannot sustain fear and hunger at the same time, then how does it break the tie? What does our brain use to settle these competing urges?

One solution would be an administrative center to the brain (our consciousness). Let's say you are having a picnic. Eating a slice of pizza alone in the woods, as one normally does. The pizza is satisfying your hunger when a Grizzly bear walks out from behind the bushes. All of a sudden you have lost your sense of hunger. Your consciousness is reprioritizing different areas of the brain. Your fear center is being amped up and made more active. The area that controls hunger is being inhibited and put on a back burner. If this reprioritization helps you survive, then the conscious brain has proven its evolutionary worth.

The hard problem could be summarized by asking: "Why doesn't this administrative reprioritizing of different brain areas happen in the dark? Why can it be experienced?"

I would have two responses to that question:

1) You could say it does happen in the dark. The world does not experience your consciousness. As humans, we spend our entire lives struggling to guess what kind of conscious thought patterns are bouncing around in someone else's head. We do not get a chance experience the conscious thought of others firsthand. In that sense, the conscious mind is carrying on in the dark without anyone taking notice.

2) Why can't an administrator have a larger image of all the tasks taking place, if said image helps them better complete their work? As individuals, each one of us is one of those summarized images. A centered perception sensing communication from other areas of the brain. An area of the brain whose purpose it is to see the brain itself. If the brain functions more efficiently when it sees itself, then the assumption that it should "take place in the dark" is incorrect. Maybe there was no hard problem thousands of years ago. But the human brain tried looking in a mirror once, and things have worked out better ever since. We experience our consciousness because not every kind of brain function can take place in the dark. How exactly do you propose that the conscious center of the brain be aware of other areas of the brain without becoming conscious in the process? What is the obvious alternative version of inter-brain awareness, if you are not in favor of the strategy that nature has chosen in this instance?

It makes you wonder ... are you the only conscious process taking place inside your brain? Maybe there are more consciousnesses happening in other areas of your brain. They could have been there your entire life. You, blissfully unaware of the other yous; and them, blissfully unaware of you. Each consciousness assuming themselves to be in the driver's seat, yet curiously lacking in total self-control.