What we perceive, feel, and think is experienced from a unique internal perspective. According to the ‘hard problem of consciousness' some of these mental states are separate to and not reducible to physical systems in the human body.

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.

As far as the complex processes of the body that spark a consciousness go, I suspect that activated matrices of neurons and electromagnetic (EM) fields play a part in activating dispersed areas of the brain to form coherent qualitative conscious responses.

This would somewhat explain our preoccupation with consciousness being an ethereal non-physical thing, as EM fields are essentially invisible to human perception. It would also seem to explain the relative transience of consciousness that can sleep, be unconscious and ‘zone out’ without any great force being exerted upon it.

I think it is also interesting that 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.

I believe that the concurrent experience of these two perspectives is 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 the apprehension that someone has broken into your house on the basis of actually perceiving a broken window and an empty space where the TV used to be.

Another 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.

So, there would seem to be an evolutionary advantage in having both ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ consciousness, a correlation to physical development and an imperceivable reducible process that might explain how it manifests.

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. They might even be the same problem. — Wheatley

The hard problem for dualism is to explain how these two opposing substances (material vs. immaterial) interact. Essentially dualism creates the problem by asserting that there are two opposing substances.

It arises as a result of thinking that you see both the world as it truly is and that you see your mind as it truly is. How they both appear is irreconcilable if you actually believe that how you see to world and mind is actually how they actually are.

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

The "easy" answer to the problem of Life, Consciousness, & Everything is Dualistic, hence too complex to be a final answer, a singular solution. All physical mechanical change requires are least two elements : Energy (causation) and Matter (malleable stuff). But the only answer to the "hard" problem is Monistic.

The absolute monistic answer goes all the way back to the beginning of everything. Some call that perfect singular solution "God". But I call it "BEING" : the power to be. All else stems from that indispensable root cause. Hence, the potential for emergence of Life & Consciousness must originate in the First Cause : BEING. You can't prove the existence of the power to exist, except as a Logical Necessity. It's that simple. :smile:

Yes Chalmers pointed to a hard problem, but we should not forget that gravity, electromagnetism, free will, causality and indeed a great portion of philosophy are hard problems too. Perhaps by contextualizing this issue, it will seem less specifically puzzling. — Manuel

Yep. He just meant it's hard because science doesn't have the conceptual tools to answer it (but maybe that's changing).

Explaining functions is the easy problem (because it doesn't require new concepts)

But sometimes I wonder if we can ever step outside consciousness so as to explain it.

Man, this "hard problem" really captures the imagination of folks. But we can put aside other hard problems, which, we never had an answer for.

So the hard problem of motion, which was made explicit with the discovery of gravity, we've never understood but have accepted, otherwise, physics would've stayed stuck.

Yeah, the brain - matter - so constituted gives occasion for the emergence and formation of experience. Given how non-substantial matter is, it should be less puzzling that thoughts can arise in the brains of certain creatures.

We start with experience, the bigger mystery is not "subjectivity", that's given, but the world.

Having a blind spot, what I described as having a weakness, is not necessarily a problem though. So long as we all recognize our own weaknesses and we work around them, the weakness is not a problem. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it intrinsic to this particular blind spot that its enactors are often blind to it being a blind spot? Is this when a blind spot bites? When it is not recognized as a limitation?

he scientist, just like everyone else in the world is confronted with problems which are not scientific problems. I.e., many problems we face cannot be solved with the scientific method. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's true and unless you're unremittingly scientistic, that would be well understood. Not many actual scientists seem to be members here, but there are a number of folk who consider science to be a more reliable pathway to understanding 'reality' than many other approaches. Where is the line drawn? Seems to be about where you think reality begins and ends.

When it comes to the hard problem of consciousness it seems to me difficult to determine who's territory this really is. And whether it is an actual thing. I am somewhat ambivalent and I recognize that like most I have no specialized knowledge with which to enhance my intuitive understanding of the matter.

It does seem to me that this problem either clicks with people or does not click. What exactly is the difference? Is it world view or experience or an actual blind spot?

I didn't mean to be too dismissive because I hadn't read the article carefully enough to be sure. I was very surprised that the homunculus turned up. It's such a cliché.

It's quite simple, really. We think of the box on the wall that contains a thermometer and a switch and think that controls the heat. Which it does, in a way. But when you take the box apart, you find, to your dismay, that no part of the box controls the heat. It's the system that controls the heat, not any part of it.

A different kind of example is in the orbit of the planets, etc around the sun. No part of the system that produces that effect is in control of it. It is the balanced system as a whole that keeps the planets in line.

Easy problems can be quite elaborate and even proven accurate, but still don’t actually touch upon the hard problem itself. — schopenhauer1

I haven't worked out my approach to the problem. It's on my list of chestnuts that I would like to get my head around one day. But I would start by making sure that the problem isn't in the way it is formulated. My suspicion is that it is not capable of solution and merely demonstrates that Wittgenstein was right about subjective experiences (which is what, I think, "qualia" are supposed to be). I will concede, however, that his response to the expostulation that there is a difference between you experiencing a pain and me experiencing the same pain. He asks what greater difference there could be. I don't think that's enough.

I apologize if I seem dismissive. I don't mean to be. People who deserve respect take the hard problem very seriously.

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. — Manuel

We develop "work-arounds", such as the idea of entropy, and then the problem gets hidden behind these strange terms. In this way, the problem will be sufficiently suppressed until in the future sometime it rears its ugly head again, in a new problematic form.

Why are we using science to attempt to back up our “feeling” of having a “personal” sense” — Antony Nickles

Are we? — Luke

Well the article starts with a study; there’s neuroscience behind it attempting to understand “consciousness”; and the whole point is making a problem out of the “body”, which is able to be empirically studied, related to the idea of a persons’s individuality, pictured as their “consciousness”. Which hair are you trying to split?

Why is the feeling “mysterious”? — Antony Nickles

Because the hard problem of consciousness is a mystery in need of an explanation. — Luke

This is circular. The question was meant to spur the thought that we (philosophers) have created a “problem”, manufactured the philosophical idea of “consciousness” for a purpose we are not examining; that, philosophically, this is old ground, even the attempt to bring it certainty (Descartes, Positivism, etc.).

Ah. It’s this “mattering” and “significance” that we wanted all along
— Antony Nickles

No, it's an answer to the hard problem that we wanted all along. — Luke

Again, here is the quote at the end where he reveals what he wanted and admits why he wanted.

“With this marvelous new phenomenon [the “phenomenal self”] at the core of your being, you’ll start to matter to yourself in a new and deeper way. You’ll come to believe, as never before, in your own singular significance.”

The quote is a conclusion unattached to his entire derivation for the purpose of justifying this “self”. And he is telling you his motivation. Maybe we are confusing his motivation with your own; I submit he is admitting something more self-reflective and honest which is typical of this project. You seem to be just expressing your opinion without explaining why you want “an answer”.

He goes on to say that if it could be proved that we each have a given, undeniable “self”... — Antony Nickles

Where does he say this? — Luke

“So, think back to the transformation that must have taken place when your ancestors first woke up to the experience of sensations imbued with qualia, and – out of nothing – the phenomenal self appeared… ‘I feel, therefore I am.’”

He feels he’s solved the skepticism of the foundational self (rewording Descartes) by implying that there is something special about my sensations (which are a given). It’s the point of the whole article.

that we would treat each other better, which implies we could wash our hands of having to see others as human — Antony Nickles

If we treated each other better, then "we could wash our hands of having to see others as human"?? — Luke

No, not if we treated each other better—?? I said “if it could be proved… we each have a… self”, as we wants. Basically, he's saying if we had knowledge of the other (before acting), then we would be moral. Hello Socrates, Kant, yada, yada. Not a new idea, but not one that pans out (ask Dostoyevsky, Nietszche, Wittgenstein). This is a philosophical misconception turned into a scientific or intellectually theoretical problem.

And just saying no it’s not isn’t an argument, it’s just a contradiction.

She was a neuroscientist involved in brain-mapping who suffered a major stroke, which resulted in her attaining an insight into what she descibed as 'Nirvāṇa' (her 'stroke of insight') due to the left hemisphere of the brain shutting down. But note that this was a first-person experience - there would have been no way for her to tell, as a neuroscientist, what that experience might be in another subject, without having undergone it. — Wayfarer

And I agree with this. We can objectively map physical processes to behavior, and even map physical processes to someone's claimed subjective experience, but we will never know what its like to be the subject experiencing. Its very similar to the thought experiment where someone reads all about an apple, but has never seen one. We can describe the apple in excruciating detail, but you won't know the experience of seeing, feeling, or tasting an apple until you actually see, feel, and taste it.

That being said, she had a physical stroke and a physical reaction to it. The inability to know what it is like to be a physical entity having an experience does not negate the fact that certain physical entities can have experiences.

Rationality is a capturing and understanding of the world that allows planning and use of that reality accurately.
— Philosophim

No, that is described in critical philosophy as the instrumentalisation of reason, although I'm guessing that won't of interest to those here. — Wayfarer

Yeah, sounds like we're getting off topic here. Maybe something to explore in another thread.

I'm questioning what you regard as obvious. What imparts that order? If you zero out the HD it is physically the same matter, it weighs the same, has all the same physical constituents, but it contains no information. The information is conveyed by the arrangement of matter. What arranges it? I mean, computers don't emerge spontaneously from the sky, they're the product of human intelligence. — Wayfarer

True. And modern day computers were built up over over a century of work at this point. Basic computers start out as a switch board, which is just a bunch of electrical gates that you turn off and on to set up results based on the combination of those on and off gates. Who would have guessed from such a simple premise we would build the modern world of information, movies, and games?

Now of course a computer did not spontaneously create itself. But we've created computers to the point that when you hook electricity to them and turn them on, they run themselves. In fact, there are whole computers that take very little, if any human input and run whole systems. In general when you send a message to the computer, you're not sending it to the hardware, but the software. That software converts and organizes your input to interface with the hardware, manipulating the gates to open and close as needed. These signals are then converted back into instructions that are passed up to display a result that is understandable to people. Its really quite magical and awe inspiring when you realize what is produced from the machine.

However, the question of who created the computer and its software does not deny that it is purely physical. AI has learning models now that garner new information and come up with new results based purely on its own failures. Here's a summary of AI and machine learning if you're interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RixMPF4xis

And that is the key difference between a computer and a human. For a computer, there's nothing more the file could be. It isn't "like anything" to be a computer. But we have a different experience, which gives rise to all of the problems discussed on this thread. — J

Are you sure? That's a VERY important part of the hard problem. You can't claim to know what the subjective experience is of something. We can claim that something does not have consciousness only by its behavior. We cannot make any claims to its subjective experience. With AI we already have programs that have limited types of consciousness. We have autonomous drones that automate reactions based on information. Yes, it is not human consciousness, but it is at the very least beyond the consciousness of a bug like a roach.

You have to understand, if you accept the hard problem as true, you can NEVER state, "Computers do not have a subjective experience." You don't know. Can you be a computer processing AI algorithms? Nope. So if we create a machine and program that exhibits all the basic behaviors of consciousness, you have no idea if it has a subjective experience or not.

Incidentally, what would constitute evidence of this claim? What would you be looking for? — Wayfarer

Outstanding question. I did a summary of three points for someone else who asked the same question earlier in this thread. Of course, its not limited to that. Let me find and repaste them here.

1. Consciousness is able to exist despite a lack of physical capability to do so.

For example, move your consciousness apart from your head where it sits into the next room that you cannot currently see.

2. Demonstrate a conscious entity that has no physical or energetic correlation.

For example, prove that a completely brain dead body is conscious. Or Inebriate someone to a high blood alcohol level and demonstrate that their consciousness is completely unaffected.

3. If consciousness is not matter and/or energy, please demonstrate evidence of its existence without using a God of the Gaps approach.

An inability to pinpoint the exact physical workings of consciousness does not negate that it is physical. We understand that a car needs an engine to run like a body needs a brain to be conscious. I don't have to understand electromagnetism to understand that a car needs an engine to run, and I don't need to understand the full mechanics of how the brain works to understand you need a brain to be conscious (in humans at least).

The hard problem is, "Will we ever know what it is like to BE a conscious individual that isn't ourselves".
— Philosophim

Just for the record, that isn't the standard way of stating the problem, and it isn't David Chalmers' way (he coined the phrase). You can listen to Chalmers describe it here: He defines the problem as "how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences in the mind." When we solve this problem (I do believe it's when, not if) we may or may not know "what it's like" to be someone else. That's a separate, though perhaps related, issue. — J

:up:

An interesting dilemma follows from the idea of "experiencing what X [someone else] experiences." — J

Rather, an interesting dilemma would follow from the idea of "experiencing what X [someone else] experiences," if it was possible to experience what X experiences. I don't suspect that will ever be possible, regardless off what the solution to the Hard Problem turns out to be.

Let's first assume that the hard problem of consciousness is not the lack of scientific knowledge in that domain but the paradox it creates when thinking of consciousness as an object in the world. — Skalidris

It doesn't imply that. For Chalmers, who came up with the hard problem, consciousness is not an object but a property of objects (and distinct from physical properties by its nature). So, your argument is a bit like saying it's logically impossible to prove the existence of time because it's an object in the world and we can't perceive it as such because each act of perception is a static measurement that never captures its flow. The way you've framed the problem may create a logical impossibility, but I think that's an issue with the framing. It may turn out to be that the problem is insoluble for other reasons or that it may be a conceptual issue (more of a non-problem), but I don't see logical impossibility applying here.

It is NOT that we don't understand that the brain causes subjective experiences. — Philosophim

Yes and No. Yes, we know that it happens in the brain. No, we do not know HOW. That's the HPoC.

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. — Philosophim

I am the being having the subjective experience. That does not help me understand how it is achieved.

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." — Philosophim

That quote explains it nicely. But you are misinterpreting it. Let me try this approach. This is from Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe. (Think what you want of his overall conclusions regarding a designer. But her knows the science.).

Here is a brief overview of the biochemistry of vision. When light first strikes the retina, a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in the shape of retinal forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein's metamorphosis alters its behavior, making it stick to another protein called transducin. Before bumping into activated rhodopsin, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with activated rhodopsin, the GDP falls off and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)

GTP-transducin-activated rhodopsin now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to activated rhodopsin and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability to chemically cut a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, like a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.

Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane which, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision. — Michael Behe

That is the Easy Problem. That is how we perceive a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. There is TONS more detail in this, and we could go much further, mapping out how we can differentiated different frequencies within that portion of the spectrum. And how our perceptions are stored in the brain, and how that stored information can then be compared to future perceptions of that portion of the spectrum. And how we report on our perceptions.

All of that is the Easy Problem. Not "easy" as in "a piece of cake." But easy as in we understand how to go about it.

We do not know how to go about the HP. That's why it's named the Hard. Because we don't know. How is all of that subjectively experienced? People like Tse, Damasio, and Gazzaniga begin their books by saying we do not know. Koch just paid off his 25 year bet to Chalmers because we haven't figured it out. Physicist Brian Greene says there are no known properties of matter that even hint at such a thing. Why do I see red, rather than just perceive different frequencies, the way a robot with an electric eye might? Why do I feel pain, rather than just perceive damage to my body, the way a robot that's wrapped in a sensory web might? These things can, and do, take place without any subjective experience. How is the subjective experience accomplished in us?

That is not what Chalmer's says at all. So stop saying that you're 'interpreting' or 'supporting' Chalmer's argument, when you're actually disagreeing with it. If you were honest, what you would say is 'there is no hard problem as Chalmers describes it'. — Wayfarer

I decided to get Chalmer's words himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yHTiQrrUhUA

Check out around 6:40. His notes are:

"The hard problem is concerned with phenomenal consciousness: what its like to be a subject.

At 8:26 he goes into the Easy problem. Again, this is about consciousness as behavior.

We have to be careful when we speak of consciousness to understand the implicit aspect that we're talking about. When I say, "Consciousness is your brain" I'm talking about the behavioral aspect of consciousness, which has not been refuted as of today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bejm1mYsr5s

In this video at about 5:40 to the end, he covers what he means by 'consciousness as a subjective experience is immaterial'. He notes its like space, time, etc. Of this, I have no problem. This is a question I've been asking for some time now from you Wayfarer, "What is it for consciousness to not be physical?" Here Chalmers gives a clear reply. And this definition of 'not physical', I have no problem with. Its a classification of category, not a claim that, "It is not matter and energy". Just like we cannot have space without matter, and time without matter, it is not a claim that we can have consciousness without matter. This definition of 'immaterial' is perfectly fine for me. This is because it is the creation of a concept within reality that does not care as to the specifics of its makeup. As long as one does not conclude from this that consciousness exists as some essence apart from the physical reality we live in, its fine.

Information itself is not a medium. If I transmit information electronically, the medium is copper or electromagnetic waves, or through speech as sound waves in the air. They are physical media. But the interpretation of information is not a physical process, and information is not physical — Wayfarer

If it is not a physical process, then what is it Wayfarer? I've already described a radio. I've already noted the brain processes information through the senses, and I don't think you deny those are physical. Its fine to claim its not physical, but if you can not demonstrate it as something else, then I don't see it being viable.

Humans build radios to do that and then interpret the sounds as meaningful. There is nothing in the 'physical world', if you mean the world outside human affairs, that will do that. — Wayfarer

Ok, but you're not countering the point that information can be interpreted by physical things. If humans are physical, then there is nothing odd with them interpreting information either. I think the only way this works for you is if its assumed that humans aren't physical. Since this is not the general viewpoint, we need to provide evidence that they aren't physical. Otherwise my point that information can exist a physical medium and physical interpretation holds.

For decades, radio telescopes have been scanning the universe looking for signals from intelligent life. Overall, they've found none (with one possible exception.) All the signals so far have a physical or natural origin. If they found a signal originated by an alien intelligence, it would be something other than physical or natural. — Wayfarer

I was with you until you said it had to be something other than physical. We don't even know if something other than the physical exists.

As noted, psychosomatic medicine, the placebo effect, etc, undercut physicalist accounts of mind. — Wayfarer

This does not if one assumes that consciousness is an aspect of physical reality like 'wetness'. In which case consciousness is also a part of physical reality, and conscious thoughts could affect the brain and body.

In this paper, Stephen Robbins examines the hard problem of consciousness, the nature of qualia, and concludes, as I also have concluded that qualia and memory are irreducible. Quality cannot be explain by some miraculous emergence from a brain. If indeed, qualia is movement (vibrations) of a matter-field then the brain's function is to create a reconstructive wave that reveals this matter field and create memory of it. Bergson frequently used the metaphor of photography to explain the flow of duration (time).

https://philpapers.org/rec/ROBFQA-2 (free download to the paper).

"In my view, the hard problem is, in fact, the problem of the origin of
the perceived image of the external world. This straightforward statement
is neither grasped nor accepted in the debate, though it has been the
formulation of the problem for 2000 years, since at least the Greeks began
thinking about it (cf. Lombardo 1987). Some readers might feel that the
words “image” and “qualia” are interchangeable – and they should be
(nearly), but to my knowledge there are virtually no discussions about
qualia in terms of “explaining the origin of the image” in consciousness
studies."

"Again, unless the matter-field is already qualitative, the generation by
the brain of colored representations remains as miraculous as the genera-
tion of form. Color and form must then be assumed in some space outside
of the abstract, homogeneous continuum of the classic metaphysics. But,
in truth, the very concept that the process of perception begins with a
matter-field without quality is the misconception of the classic, spatial
metaphysics.'

I think to view the hard problem as something that can be 'solved' is to misunderstand what kind of problem it is. It's a hard problem, because it is not the kind of problem that is amenable to scientific analysis and solution. And that's because of the premises of the scientific approach, one of which is that it predicated on the objective analysis of quantifiable entities and relationships.

The most radical implication of the new affective turn is that what has been considered unique to conscious subjects, the feeling of what it is like to be, the qualitative experience e of the world, is implied in all of what we call physical processes — Joshs

Implied? Do you think there is an equation that might describe that, such that, given the equation, and the requisite starting parameters, an output could be generated that would equal 'a feeling'? Whenever anything is interpreted, then you're already outside the domain of the strictly physical. Interpretive processes always entail qualitative judgements, and they're different in kind to quantitative analysis. Or so I would have thought.

You can be a materialist like Strawson and then the "hard problem" can't be posed.

Alternatively, one can agree with Chomsky who provides extensive documentation, that the "hard problem" is very misleading.

Or like McGinn, one can say that there are many mysteries, consciousness being one of them.

Consciousness is hard not because of materialism, but because of the way we think about ordinary matter, which is fine for everyday living, but extremely inadequate when looked at in detail.

But a connection between the two is obviously there. If I experience whatever conscious quality, then there is a material counterpart in the brain. — GraveItty

A lot of philosophical analysis comprises questioning what seems obvious to you. You're phrasing the question in terms of an assumed framework of understanding, that 'the brain' is the source of the explanation you're seeking. But, for one thing, I would question the sense in which the brain *is* 'a material thing' at all. The brain is the most complex phenomenon known to science, there are more neural connections than there are stars in the observable universe. Teams of thousands have spent tens of years on single aspects of understanding that. And the brain is embodied in a organism, in the nervous system, the biosphere, and within a cultural and linguistic matrix, also. Considering it as an object in its own right occludes all of those fundamental aspects of its operation.

Materialist theory of mind all begins with some version of the idea that the mind is a product of interactions in the physical brain. And it does seem obvious that this must be the case to a lot of people. But I'm questioning that.

I think the way to frame the problem is this: that science generally proceeds in terms of what can be known objectively, or put another way, by analysis of objects and the relationships between them. That is why physics is the paradigm for so much else in science and even philosophy, which is what 'physicalism' means.

So it is natural to ask, what kind of object or substance can consciousness be? What kind of thing, or stuff, is it? But I'm saying that it's not an object of any kind, it simply can't be accomodated within that overall epistemological framework. It's not an object, it doesn't objectively exist. But because modern culture is so reliant on that implicit subject-object framework, it can't come to terms with this fact. That's why modern thinking is generally convinced that only what exists 'out there somewhere', in time and space, can be real. That is what leads to 'eliminative materialism', the idea that there really is no such thing as consciousness per se.

Consider the nature of meaning. Human consciousness, which is linguistic, abstract and rational (to some degree anyway) is constantly navigating by a process of judgement. In what sense are judgements physical? When you grasp something, some idea, the light bulb goes on, you see what it means - is that a physical process, in any sense? Sure, it might have physical consequences - if you grasp something awful, you might get an adrenal reaction, something wonderful can produce endorphins. But what is that 'act of insight'? I think assuming that understanding the nature of judgement, the human faculty of discerning meaning, is something that science is closing in on, is a category mistake. There's a profound misunderstanding at the basis of it. That is 'the hard problem' of consciousness.

And this even has, in some sense, scientific acknowledgement. Have a read of this section of a scientific paper on the neural binding problem. It specifically acknowledges the hard problem of consciousness.

But talking about "neural binding problem" does not shift to an inapproprate empirical frame of reference (i.e. what your guru Chalmers calls "an easy problem of cognition") when discussing the allegedly philosophical "hard problem of consciousness" — 180 Proof

Materialist philosophy of mind is that the mind is a product of physical transactions, neurotransmitters, and the like. One of the Enlightenment philosophers expressed it (crudely) as 'the brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile'. That I take to be the forerunner of the idea that the mind ('consciousness') is an 'emergent property' of the brain. So I was objecting to putting it in those terms as it is seems inevitably reductionist. It is reducing the discussion to neurological terms, again.

Chalmers is not 'my guru'. His 'facing up to the hard problem' is a canonical text in philosophy of mind, for the reasons given.

The issue of the subjective unity of experience is a different matter. The unity of conscious experience is an undeniable fact of experience, a priori. But that excerpt I quoted spells out that 'there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene' - that 'illusory detailed scene' being 'conscious experience'. So it's indicating that, whatever the nature of that is, it is NOT accounted for by neuroscience.

The issue is that the mind, under phenomenology, is not allowed to have presuppositions -- presuppositions of the cause of the sense impressions — Caldwell

Did I talk about phenomenology? I'm sorry, but I can't understand the rest of what you said.

The easy problem of consciousness attempts to explain how the brain works as a complex mechanism by observing causes and effects, such as the activation of neurons or the presence of an EM field. It's called 'easy' because we already have scientific methods for measuring and explaining such processes. For example, we can track how light travels through the eyeballs, how it gets converted to electric signals, and how those signals travels through different regions of the brain.

Given enough time, we can build a comprehensive understanding of all processes that are carried out in the brain. But even if we have such an understanding, it's still unclear why these processes cannot be carried out in complete absence of an experience. I.e. how does individual experience manifest itself? We know that we experience our existence as human beings, but does a river experience its? Does a computer experience existence while it performs millions of complex computations? It doesn't seem like, but how could we know for sure? The hard problem is hard because the scientific method doesn't have good ways to approach this problem just yet.

On what experiential or rational ground to you grant the first word no referent when, I presume, you do the second? — javra

As I said above, 'consciousness' has a family of meanings that are valid in ordinary life. If we thought the dead and buried were 'conscious,' we'd dig them up and offer them a better view. If we thought someone 'consciously' let a disaster happen when they could have easily prevented it, we'd treat them differently thereafter. The point is that any legitimate meaning of 'consciousness' is already so entangled in the world that the hard problem vanishes. It's only a hyper-rarefied paradoxical and parasitic notion of consciousness that helps the hard problem sound like a problem with science as opposed to its (the problem's) mischievous inventors.

He [Chalmers] merely states that it is not hard to imagine creatures on another world living as we do today and doing what we do yet having no consciousness whatsoever... — I like sushi

Regarding Quote 01 above, do I correctly characterize it as a description of the behaviorism resultant of high-level, automatic, chemical-mechanical processes?

From there it is then a question of asking what is the difference between us and them. — I like sushi

Regarding Quote 02 above, I answer by declaring we humans, unlike the automatons, possess a self who, described functionally, maintains a personal POV of events as reported via the senses & the cogitating mind.

This leads me to my approach to The Hard Problem.

How does our scientific process, based mainly within objectivism, render an objective profile of subjectivity? In facing The Hard Problem, have we arrived at the limit of scientific objectivism?

Speaking traditionally, is not the academically objective rendering of subjective experience normally handled by denizens of the literary components of English Departments i.e. by the novelist?

The novel, however, does not normally delve into the how of rendering subjective experience objectively, or does it?

Disciplines such as structuralism & semiotics, derided by many as false scientification of the humanites, as I'm seeing them just now in context of this discussion, lean towards an objective assessment of subjectivity.

One of the pillars of the objective assessment of subjectivity is self-reference & self-referentiality.

If cognitive science has ascended to the level of analyzing the second-order feedback looping that substrates a self regarding first-order baseline feedback looping, then self-referentiality is now in the crosshairs of scientific objectivism.

What about the consciousness that comprises the inner, emotional life of the experiencing self?

Can that consciousness be objectified without it turning its observer-receiver into a clone of itself?

Must the individualized self soldier on through life in its unique & solitary bubble of selfhood?

To my mind "the hard problem of consciousness" is only "hard" for (Cartesian) philosophers because their aporia is actually still only an underdetermined scientific problem.

You know the so-called hard problem of consciousness, as I understand it, boils down to the inability of scientific methods/instruments to access, a necessary step towards an explanation of consciousness, the first-person/subjective (what it is like ... to be a bat?) aspect of consciousness.

However, take a look at a fact that's analogous but doesn't elicit a similar woo-woo like response. According to Hubble the universe is expanding in such a way that the farthest objects (galaxies) from us are receding away the fastest. Scientists say that at some particular distance/time, the light from far, far away galaxies won't be able to reach us because space is expanding at a tremendous rate. These galaxies too, like the first-person, subjective facet of consciousness, are forever beyond science. This, however, doesn't imply these galaxies are nonphysical.

What justification is there then to conclude nonphysicalism from the hard problem of consciousness? I see none at all.

To my mind "the hard problem of consciousness" is only "hard" for (Cartesian) philosophers because their aporia is actually still an underdetermined scientific problem. — 180 Proof

Perhaps a little clarification. The hard problem has nothing to do with the biology of consciousness. Lets say in 20 years we discover all of the biological processes of consciousness. 100 years later we learn exactly what feelings and thoughts are, and can translate and affect them in the brain with 100% accuracy.

There is one question that this will not answer. What does is the experience of being conscious as that person? Its not really even necessarily consciousness depending on your definition. Its being. An apple is a group of living cells. What is it like to be an apple? To exist and realize you are an apple? Or a dog? Another human being?

To my understanding it is answering what it is like to experience being something that is the hard problem of consciousness. It is an impossible question to answer with our current understanding of the world. Does that mean that consciousness isn't biological or cannot be measured accurately by science? Not at all.

Isn't this what they call the hard problem - — T Clark

Phenomenal consciousness and metacognition constitute the hard problem. There is something it is like to be you (or me) what is this? (And no, I'm not looking for an answer.)

This from "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.

Chalmers;https://consc.net/papers/facing.pdf"]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. that unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
" — T Clark

There is one fundamental premise that really should preside over the entire inquiry: all one has ever experienced, every can experience, and hence ever know, is phenomena. It reminds me of an issue I came across regarding Freud and the unconscious: The unconscious was considered to be a metaphysical concept entirely, and I thought, no, for there is an evidential basis for it. But the response was quick, pointing out that it was not that the unconscious had never been directly experienced, but rather that it was impossible for it to every be experienced, encountered, and this is why it belonged to metaphysics. Not just unknown but impossible to know. Why? Because the moment it comes to mind to consider at all, it is conscious, and references to the unconscious are only references to conscious events, which in turn were the same. The unconscious cannot be even conceived as a concept. It is nonsense.

Here, anything that can ever be conceived, even in the most compelling argument imaginable, simply cannot be anything but a phenomenological event, for to conceive at all is inherently phenomenological. Nonsense to think otherwise. Consciousness is inherently phenomenological.

There is no way out of this, for the moment the effort is made, one is already IN the problem; unless, that is, Husserl was right, and that it is possible to achieve an awareness of the intuited landscape of all things that is pure and absolute. This, then, is not a matter for science as we know it. It lies with the "science" of phenomenology. Which leads me to reaffirm that philosophy is going to end up one place, and it is here, in phenomenology. There is quite literally no where else to go.

I don't think the question makes any sense at all. We don't ask why the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, we don't ask why protein channels block certain molecules, we don't ask why water boils at 100C. Why would we expect an answer to the question of why these neurological functions result in consciousness. They just do.

We could give an evolutionary account, some natural advantage to consciousness. Random changes in neurological activity one time resulted in proto-consciousness which gave an evolutionary advantage to the creature and so it passed on that genetic mutation. There...is that satisfactory, and if not, why not? — Isaac

This makes a lot of sense to me, by which I mean I agree. This is why the hard problem may be hard, but it's not really a problem, just a question.

The hard problem is just more masturbation. — neonspectraltoast

That's one way to get rid of a "hard" problem.