Hard problem of consciousness

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The term hard problem of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers, refers to the "hard problem" of explaining why we have qualitative phenomenal experiences. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining the ability to discriminate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc. Easy problems are easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify a mechanism that can perform the function. Hard problems are distinct from this set because they "persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained"..

Various formulations of the "hard problem":

• "Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?"
• "How is it that some organisms are subjects of experience?"
• "Why does awareness of sensory information exist at all?"
• "Why do qualia exist?"
• "Why is there a subjective component to experience?"
• "Why aren't we philosophical zombies?"

It has been argued that the Hard Problem has had other scholarly inquiries considerably earlier than Chalmers. For instance, Leibniz wrote:

“Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions. And

supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think,

feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, (we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception.

And as Isaac Newton wrote in a letter to Henry Oldenburg: "to determine by what modes or actions light produceth in our minds the phantasm of colour is not so easie".

Some philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett, oppose the idea that there is a Hard problem.

References

See also

• David Chalmers
• Mind-body dichotomy
• Philosophy of mind
• Qualia
• Two dimensionalism
• Consciousness causes collapse

External links

• Journal of Consciousness Studies Symposium on the Hard Problem
• The Objective Consciousness Revisited - Understanding the Nature of Consciousness by Robert G. Heyward
• The Hard Problem Is Dead by Teed Rockwell
• You can't argue with a Zombie by Jaron Lanier
• Pharoah, M.C. (online). Looking to systems theory for a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience and evolutionary foundations for higher order thought Retrieved Jan.03 2008.

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