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Encyclopedia > Hard problem of consciousness
Unsolved problems in cognitive science: How is it possible to resolve the Hard Problem?

The term hard problem of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers[1][2], 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. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... There are fewer celebrated findings than unsolved problems in cognitive science; however one can list: How much human intervention is needed to produce a cognition? What is the relationship of personhood to cognition? Why is it currently so much more difficult for a machine to recognize a human than for... David John Chalmers (born April 20, 1966) is a philosopher in the area of philosophy of mind. ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ...


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?"
  • "There is something it is like to be a bat", or other conscious organism (Thomas Nagel)

It has been argued that the Hard Problem has precursors considerably earlier than Chalmers. For instance, Leibniz wrote: Redness is the canonical quale. ... In philosophy, a philosophical zombie or p-zombie is a hypothetical person that, despite a strong likeness to normal human beings, lacks conscious experience or (in other words) has no qualia at all. ... Thomas Nagel (born July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Serbia) is University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University and member of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. ... Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (July 1, 1646 in Leipzig - November 14, 1716 in Hannover) was a German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer of Sorb descent. ...

“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. [3]

And as Newton wrote in a letter to to Henry Oldenburg: "to determine by what modes or actions light produceth in our minds the phantasm of colour is not so easie".[4] The newton (symbol: N) is the SI unit of force. ...


American philosopher William James also adressed the matter. For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation) William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. ...


References

  1. ^ The Place of Mind, ed. Brian Cooney
  2. ^ Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness by David Chalmers
  3. ^ Leibniz, monadology, 17, quoted by Istvan Aranyosi
  4. ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Panpsychism

See Also

David John Chalmers (born April 20, 1966) is a philosopher in the area of philosophy of mind. ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Redness is the canonical quale. ...

External links

  • Commentary on Chalmers: Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness by Daniel Dennett
  • The Objective Consciousness Revisited - Understanding the Nature of Consciousness by Robert G. Heyward

  Results from FactBites:
 
Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness (11389 words)
The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms.
Sometimes a system is said to be conscious of some information when it has the ability to react on the basis of that information, or, more strongly, when it attends to that information, or when it can integrate that information and exploit it in the sophisticated control of behavior.
It is common to see a paper on consciousness begin with an invocation of the mystery of consciousness, noting the strange intangibility and ineffability of subjectivity, and worrying that so far we have no theory of the phenomenon.
hardprob.evolution (3695 words)
David Chalmers (1995, 1996) has recently done philosophy the favor of distinguishing the "hard problem of consciousness"&emdash;why it is that conscious phenomena appear in the world at all&emdash;from the "easy" problems such as the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to enviornmental stimuli and the focus of attention.
If one is not yet convinced that consciousness cannot be explained in physicalistic terms, what follows may be viewed more modestly as an examination of whether evolutionary explanation of consciousness can contribute anything to the solution of the hard problem not already contained in more structurally-based forms of physical explanation.
In short, biological explanation of the hard problem of consciousness is no more plausible than the physicalistic explanation of the initial appearance of a trait, because the selectional story contributes exactly nothing to the solution of this particular problem, but only tells why such traits would proliferate once they appeared.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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