David Chalmers advocates the view that the phenomenon of consciousness is fundamentally different from all other phenomena studied in the life sciences, positing a uniquely hard problem that precludes the possibility of a mechanistic explanation. In this paper, I evaluate three demarcation criteria for dividing phenomena into hard and easy problems: functional definability, the puzzle of the accompanying phenomenon, and the first-person data of subjective experience. I argue that none of the proposed criteria can accurately discriminate (...) between the phenomenon of consciousness and mechanistically explainable phenomena. (shrink)

I see four symbol grounding problems: 1) How can a purely computational mind acquire meaningful symbols? 2) How can we get a computational robot to show the right linguistic behavior? These two are misleading. I suggest an 'easy' and a 'hard' problem: 3) How can we explain and re-produce the behavioral ability and function of meaning in artificial computational agents?4) How does physics give rise to meaning?

I argue that the traditional distinction between hard and easy problems rests on some inaccurate views about explanation in cognitive science. We should distinguish the question of what gives rise to a phenomenon (the generative question) from what that phenomenon is (the nature question). In many cases throughout the special sciences, an answer to the generative question will not shed significant light on the nature question, nor will it eliminate all conceptually possible alternatives. Meanwhile, the apparent easiness (...) of explaining consciousness functions is due to an oversimplification of these problems akin to what is often called 'substitution bias'. Once these issues are clarified, we see that the hard problem is not so hard, the easy problems are not so easy, and the meta-problem is neither a traditional easy problem nor should we expect it to play a special role in illuminating the natural basis of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper challenges David Chalmers' proposed division of the problems of consciousness into the `easy' ones and the `hard' one, the former allegedly being susceptible to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms and the latter supposedly turning on the fact that experiential `qualia' resist any sort of functional definition. Such a division, it is argued, rests upon a misrepresention of the nature of human cognition and experience and their intimate interrelationship, thereby neglecting a vitally important (...) insight of Kant. From a Kantian perspective, our capacity for conceptual thought is so inextricably bound up with our capacity for phenomenal consciousness that it is an illusion to imagine that there are any `easy' problems of consciousness, resolvable within the computational or neural paradigms. (shrink)

You know that you are conscious, but what exactly does that mean, and how could it possibly work? We have machines that can do amazing information processing, but what kind of stuff, or what kind of system, could we say is really conscious? How surprising is it that our own brains are conscious? Biting the Bullet of Consciousness looks at some of the proposals on offer, and comes down on the side of panpsychism, the apparently wacky belief that consciousness, or (...) something like it, must exist way, way down in the basic building blocks of physics. Come on in, the water's fine. Along the way, we'll cover some old ground in new ways, including free will and the self, reference and meaning, and with luck, end up with a sense that there is a way forward in our thinking about minds: if not a paradigm shift exactly, maybe a paradigm scooch. (shrink)

David Chalmers distinguishes the hard problem of consciousness -- why should a physical system give rise to conscious experiences at all -- with what he calls the easy problems, the explanation of how cognitive systems, including human brains, perform various cognitive functions. He argues that the easy problems are easy because the performance of any function can be explained by specifying a mechanism that performs the function. This article argues that conscious experiences have a (...) role in the performance by human beings of some cognitive functions, that can't be realised by mechanisms of the kind studied by the objective sciences; and that accordingly some of Chalmers’ easy problems will not be fully solved unless and until the hard problem is solved. (shrink)

Phenomenal consciousness presents a distinctive explanatory problem. Some regard this problem as ‘hard’, which has troubling implications for the science and metaphysics of consciousness. Some regard it as ‘easy’, which ignores the special explanatory difficulties that consciousness offers. Others are unable to decide between these two uncomfortable positions. All three camps assume that the problem of consciousness is either easy or hard. I argue against this disjunction and suggest that the problem may be ‘tricky’—that is, partly (...) easy and partly hard. This possibility emerges when we recognise that consciousness raises two explanatory questions. The Consciousness Question concerns why a subject is conscious rather than unconscious. The Character Question concerns why a conscious subject’s experience has the phenomenology it has rather than some other. I explore the possibility of one or other of these explanatory challenges being hard and the other easy, and consider the dialectical ramifications this has for all sides of the debate. (shrink)

This paper contrasts David Chalmers’s formulation of the easy and hard problems of consciousness with a Cartesian formulation. 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. For Descartes, the easy problem is knowing the essential features of conscious experience. The hard problem is verifying our (...) knowledge of the mathematical—physical world. While Chalmers admits that consciousness as subjective experience has something irreducible about it, he also presupposes that conscious experience arises from physical processes. These physical processes are posited as objectively real entities given prior to human experience. The knowledge of such entities is assumed without theoretical justification. This assumption arguably invites a reductive materialist theory of mind. I suggest that employing the Cartesian method to articulate the representational theory of knowledge provides an antidote to reductive materialism and illuminates the conceptual gap between physical processes and conscious experience. To illustrate this I contrast Dennett’s heterophenomenology with the Cartesian method of crossing the conceptual gap. I suggest that the hard problem is attaining a knowledge of the extra-mental physical objects, not of conscious experience. (shrink)

This paper challenges David Chalmers' proposed division of the problems of consciousness into the `easy' ones and the `hard' one, the former allegedly being susceptible to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms and the latter supposedly turning on the fact that experiential `qualia' resist any sort of functional definition. Such a division, it is argued, rests upon a misrepresention of the nature of human cognition and experience and their intimate interrelationship, thereby neglecting a vitally important (...) insight of Kant. From a Kantian perspective, our capacity for conceptual thought is so inextricably bound up with our capacity for phenomenal consciousness that it is an illusion to imagine that there are any `easy' problems of consciousness, resolvable within the computational or neural paradigms. (shrink)

David Chalmers has distinguished the “hard” and the “easy” problem of consciousness, arguing that progress on the “easy problem”—on pinpointing the physical/neural correlates of consciousness—will not necessarily involve progress on the hard problem—on explaining why consciousness, in the first place, emerges from physical processing. Chalmers, however, was hopeful that refined theorizing would eventually yield philosophical progress. In particular, he argued that panpsychism might be a candidate account to solve the hard problem. Here, I provide a (...) concise stock-take on both the empirical-neuroscientific and philosophical-conceptual progress on consciousness. It turns out that, whereas empirical progress is indisputable, philosophical progress is much less pronounced. While Chalmers was right, I argue, in distinguishing distinctive types of problems of consciousness, his prediction of progress on the hard problem was overly optimistic. Empirical progress and philosophical progress are essentially uncoupled; a more skeptical perspective on progress in philosophy in general is appropriate. (shrink)

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. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. The easy problems are easy precisely because they concern the explanation of cognitive abilities and functions. Once we have specified the neural or computational mechanism that performs the function of verbal report, for (...) example, the bulk of our work in explaining reportability is over. Baars theory of cognitive accessibility addresses many aspects of human cognition and shows promise as a theory of awareness, the functional correlate of conscious experience, but an explanation of experience itself is not on offer. The key is the conceptual point that the explanation of functions does not suffice for the explanation of experience. (shrink)

David Chalmers has distinguished the “hard” and the “easy” problem of consciousness, arguing that progress on the “easy problem”—on pinpointing the physical/neural correlates of consciousness—will not necessarily involve progress on the hard problem—on explaining why consciousness, in the first place, emerges from physical processing. Chalmers, however, was hopeful that refined theorizing would eventually yield philosophical progress. In particular, he argued that panpsychism might be a candidate account to solve the hard problem. Here, I provide a (...) concise stock-take on both the empirical-neuroscientific and philosophical-conceptual progress on consciousness. It turns out that, whereas empirical progress is indisputable, philosophical progress is much less pronounced. While Chalmers was right, I argue, in distinguishing distinctive types of problems of consciousness, his prediction of progress on the hard problem was overly optimistic. Empirical progress and philosophical progress are essentially uncoupled; a more skeptical perspective on progress in philosophy in general is appropriate. (shrink)

Alleged self-evidence aside, conceivability arguments are one of the main reasons in favor of the claim that there is a Hard Problem. These arguments depend on the appealing Kripkean intuition that there is no difference between appearances and reality in the case of consciousness. I will argue that this intuition rests on overlooking a distinction between cognitive access and consciousness, which has received recently important empirical support. I will show that there are good reasons to believe that the intuition (...) is misguided—at least on the reading that the conceivability arguments require—and hence that the arguments are unsupported. This, in turn, alleviates the Hard Problem but leaves us with what I think is a not easy problem. (shrink)

The philosophical mind-body problem, which Chalmers has named the 'Hard Problem', concerns the nature of the mind and the body. Physicalist approaches have been explored intensively in recent years but have brought us no consensual solution. Dualistic approaches have also been scrutinised since Descartes, but without consensual success. Mentalism has received little attention, yet it offers an elegantly simple solution to the hard problem.

We report two experiments which tested whether cognitive capacities are limited to those functions that are computationally tractable (PTIME-Cognition Hypothesis). In particular, we investigated the semantic processing of reciprocal sentences with generalized quantifiers, i.e., sentences of the form Q dots are directly connected to each other, where Q stands for a generalized quantifier, e.g. all or most. Sentences of this type are notoriously ambiguous and it has been claimed in the semantic literature that the logically strongest reading is preferred (Strongest (...) Meaning Hypothesis). Depending on the quantifier, the verification of their strongest interpretations is computationally intractable whereas the verification of the weaker readings is tractable. We conducted a picture completion experiment and a picture verification experiment to investigate whether comprehenders shift from an intractable reading to a tractable reading which should be dispreferred according to the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis. The results from the picture completion experiment suggest that intractable readings occur in language comprehension. Their verification, however, rapidly exceeds cognitive capacities in case the verification problem cannot be solved using simple heuristics. In particular, we argue that during verification, guessing strategies are used to reduce computational complexity. (shrink)

From the materialist stance that I find compelling, the metaproblem of consciousness -- explaining why the problem of consciousness seems hard -- is hardly distinct from the 'easy' problem of explaining how the underlying physical/computational system works, and how it gives rise to perceptions of its own functioning. I discuss several confusions that might plausibly arise in that process, and propose that these confusions could create apparent gaps, ontological and epistemic, in materialist accounts of consciousness, thereby making the (...) hard problem hard. Inversely, resolving these confusions may help solve the hard problem. (shrink)

In his book The Conscious Mind David Chalmers introduced a by now familiar distinction between the hard problem and the easy problems of consciousness. The easy problems are those concerned with the question of how the mind can process information, react to environmental stimuli, and exhibit such capacities as discrimination, categorization, and introspection (Chalmers, 1996, 4, 1995, 200). All of these abilities are impressive, but they are, according to Chalmers, not metaphysically baffling, since they can (...) all be tackled by means of the standard repertoire of cognitive science and explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. This task might still be difficult, but it is within reach. In contrast, the hard problem—also known as the problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995, 201)—is the problem of explaining why mental states have phenomenal or experiential qualities. Why is it like something to ‘taste coffee’, to ‘touch an ice cube’, to ‘look at a sunset’ etc.? Why does it feel the way it does? Why does it at all feel like anything? Chalmers’s distinction confronts us with a version of the so-called ‘explanatory gap’. On the one hand, we have certain cognitive functions, which can apparently be explained reductively, and on the other hand, we have a number of experiential qualities, which seem to resist this reductive explanation. We can establish that a certain function is accompanied by a certain experience, but we have no idea why that happens, and regardless of how closely we scrutinize the neural mechanisms we don’t seem to be getting any closer at an answer. In his book, Chalmers also distinguished two concepts of mind: a phenomenal concept and a psychological concept. The first captures the conscious aspect of mind: Mind is understood in terms of conscious experience. The second concept understands mind in functional terms as the causal or explanatory basis for behavior.. (shrink)

Metanormativists hold that moral uncertainty can affect how we ought, in some morally authoritative sense, to act. Many metanormativists aim to generalize expected utility theory for normative uncertainty. Such accounts face the “easy problem of intertheoretic comparisons”: the worry that distinct theories’ assessments of choiceworthiness are incomparable. The easy problem may well be resolvable, but another problem looms: while some moral theories assign cardinal degrees of choiceworthiness, other theories’ choiceworthiness assignments are merely ordinal. Expected choiceworthiness over such theories (...) is undefined. Call this the “hard problem of intertheoretic comparisons.” This paper argues that to solve the hard problem, we should model moral theories with imprecise choiceworthiness. Imprecise choiceworthiness assignments can model incomplete cardinal information about choiceworthiness, with precise cardinal choiceworthiness and merely ordinal choiceworthiness as limiting cases. Generalizing familiar decision theories for imprecise choiceworthiness to the case of moral uncertainty generates puzzles, however: natural generalizations seem to require reifying parts of the model that don’t correspond to anything in normative reality. I discuss three ways of addressing this problem: by demystifying the reified elements by using them as promiscuously as possible; by constructing alternative decision theories that don’t require the troublesome elements; and by employing an alternative model of metanormative decision problems, and of moral uncertainty generally. (shrink)

The philosophical study of consciousness is chock full of thought experiments: John Searle’s Chinese Room, David Chalmers’ Philosophical Zombies, Frank Jackson’s Mary’s Room, and Thomas Nagel’s ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ among others. Many of these experiments and the endless discussions that follow them are predicated on what Chalmers famously referred as the ‘hard’ problem of consciousness: for him, it is ‘easy’ to figure out how the brain is capable of perception, information integration, attention, reporting (...) on mental states, etc, even though this is far from being accomplished at the moment. What is ‘hard’, claims the man of the p-zombies, is to account for phenomenal experience, or what philosophers usually call ‘qualia’: the ‘what is it like’, first-person quality of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper presents a challenge problem for decision-theoretic planners. State-space planners reason globally, building a map of the parts of the world relevant to the planning problem, and then attempt to distill a plan out of the map. A planning problem is constructed that humans find trivial, but no state-space planner can solve. Existing POCL planners cannot solve the problem either, but for a less fundamental reason.

The symbol grounding problem (SGP) proposed by Stevan Harnad in 1990, originates from Searle’s “Chinese Room Argument” and refers to the problem of how a pure symbolic system acquires its meaning. While many solutions to this problem have been proposed, all of them have encountered inconsistencies to different extents. A recent approach for resolving the problem is to divide the SGP into hard and easy problems echoing the distinction between hard and easy problems for (...) resolving the enigma of consciousness. This however turns out not to be an ideal strategy: Everything related to consciousness that cannot be well-explained by present theories can be categorized as a hard problem which as a consequence would doom the SGP to irresolvability. We therefore argue that the SGP can be regarded as a general problem of how an AI system can have intentionality, and develop a theoretical direction for its solution. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers' (1995) assertion that there is a "hard problem of consciousness" worth solving in the philosophy of mind. In this paper I defend Chalmers against Dennett on this point: I argue that there is a hard problem of consciousness, that it is distinct in kind from the so-called easy problems, and that it is vital for the sake of honest and productive research in the cognitive sciences to be clear about (...) the difference. But I have my own rebuke for Chalmers on the point of explanation. Chalmers (1995, 1996) proposes to "solve" the hard problem of consciousness by positing qualia as fundamental features of the universe, alongside such ontological basics as mass and space-time. But this is an inadequate solution: to posit, I will urge, is not to explain. To bolster this view, I borrow from an account of explanation by which it must provide "epistemic satisfaction" to be considered successful (Rowlands, 2001; Campbell, 2009), and show that Chalmers' proposal fails on this account. I conclude that research in the science of consciousness cannot move forward without greater conceptual clarity in the field. (shrink)

The chapter discusses the rejuvenation of an interest in Mach in the recent metaphysics and philosophy of mind. In the early twentieth century, Mach had been interpreted as a phenomenalist, but phenomenalism fell out of favor in the 1950s. In the later decades, he received praise for his naturalism, but his contributions to metaphysics or philosophy of mind were regarded as misbegotten or irrelevant. With the search for a monistic alternative to both materialism and dualism in the recent philosophy of (...) consciousness, however, Mach attracts a fresh attention. For example, the contemporary philosopher Sam Coleman develops a version of a monistic metaphysic called “panqualityism,” which resembles Mach’s view to a large extent. Like most contemporary monists, however, Coleman works much more closely from Russell’s The Analysis of Matter, than Mach’s The Analysis of Sensations. The chapter details the circumstances that have led to the recent rise of monism; the varieties of Russellian monism; Coleman’s panqualityism; and the similarities and differerences between panqualityism and Machian monism. (shrink)

[email protected] http://bruce.edmonds.name Abstract. Two kinds of problem are distinguished: the first of finding processes which produce complex outcomes from the interaction of simple parts, and the second of finding which process resulted in an observed complex outcome. The former I call the easy complexity problem and the later the hard complexity problem. It is often assumed that progress with the easy problem will aid process with the hard problem. However this assumes that the “reverse engineering” problem, (...) of determining the process from the outcomes is feasible. Taking a couple of simple models of reverse engineering, I show that this task is infeasible in the general case. Hence it cannot be assumed that reverse engineering is possible, and hence that most of the time progress on the easy problem will not help with the hard problem unless there are special properties of a particular set of processes that make it feasible. Assuming that complexity science is not merely an academic “game” and given the analysis of this paper, some criteria for the kinds of paper that have a reasonable chance of being eventually useful for understanding observed complex systems are outlined. Many complexity papers do not fare well against these critieria. (shrink)

Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness argues that despite the worries of explanatory pessimists, consciousness can be fully explained in “easy” scientific terms. The widespread intuition that consciousness poses a hard problem is plausibly based on how consciousness appears to us in first-person access. The book offers a debunking argument to undercut the justificatory link between the first-person appearances and our hard problem intuitions. -/- The key step in the debunking argument involves the development (...) and defense of an empirical model of first-person access: Automated Compression Theory (ACT). ACT holds that first-person access to consciousness is accomplished by automated accessing of compressed sensory information. Because of the distorting nature of this compressed access, it seems to subjects that consciousness possesses “exceptional” properties—properties leading to the hard problem—even though no such properties are present. If there are no exceptional properties to explain, then an explanation in easy terms can fully account for conscious experience. The book presents a range of empirical evidence for ACT and concludes that the burden of proof is now on the pessimists to show why we shouldn’t be optimistic about explaining consciousness. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the thesis put forward by David Gunkel and Mark Coeckelbergh in their essay Facing Animals:A Relational, Other-Oriented Approach to Moral Standing. The authors believe that the question about the status of animals needs to be reconsidered. In their opinion, traditional attempts to justify the practice of ascribing rights to animals have been based on the search for what is common to animals and people. This popular conviction rests on the intuition according to which we tend (...) to treat better those beings that are closer to us and resemble man in one way or the other. The attempts to ascribe a special status to animals are therefore based on the question “What properties does the animal have?”. However, the question is not well formulated because it leads to a number of ontological and epistemological problems. The question should rather be “What are the conditions under which an entity becomes a moral subject?”. Whilst fully subscribing to the suggestion, I cannot agree to the way the question is understood by both authors. I will demonstrate that the question opens up a transcendental dimension of reflections and may provide a clear justification of the need to engage in animal ethics. To do so, I will separate the easy and hard problems of animal ethics and use a different approach from the one suggested by Gunkel and Coeckelbergh to demonstrate how the need to pursue animal ethics may be justified. (shrink)

Inspired by the 'reflexive monism' of Max Velmans, this paper considers four problems of mind and body. (1) The traditional mind–body problem, including the 'easy' problem of identifying the neural correlates of consciousness, and the 'hard' problem of determining just how neural processes generate conscious states. (2) The distinction between automatic (unconscious) and controlled (conscious) processes, raising the question about the relative roles they play in experience, thought, and action, as well as the question of free will. (...) (3) Psychosomatic effects, including the stress–disease connection, placebo effects, and hypnotic suggestion, in which beliefs appear to have consequences for bodily processes outside the nervous system. (4) Whether mind can exist in the absence of a bodily host, as exemplified by spiritualism and parapsychology. As challenging as the easy and hard problems are, psychology can advance as a science of mental life without ever solving them. (shrink)

The paper attempts to establish the importance of addressing what Chalmers calls the ‘easy problems’ of consciousness, at the expense of the ‘hard problem’. One pragmatic argument and two philosophical arguments are presented to defend this approach to consciousness, and three major theories of consciousness are criticized in this light. Finally, it is shown that concentration on the easy problems does not lead to eliminativism with respect to consciousness.

In the April 2002 edition of JCS I outlined the conscious electromagnetic information field theory, claiming that consciousness is that component of the brain's electromagnetic field that is downloaded to motor neurons and is thereby capable of communicating its informational content to the outside world. In this paper I demonstrate that the theory is robust to criticisms. I further explore implications of the theory particularly as regards the relationship between electromagnetic fields, information, the phenomenology of consciousness and the meaning of (...) free will. Using cemi field theory I propose a working hypothesis that shows, among other things, that awareness and information represent the same phenomenon viewed from different reference frames. (shrink)

We argue that A. Damasio’s (1994) Somatic Marker hypothesis can explain why humans don’t generally suffer from the frame problem, arguably the greatest obstacle facing the Computational Theory of Mind. This involves showing how humans with damaged emotional centers are best understood as actually suffering from the frame problem. We are then able to show that, paradoxically, these results provide evidence for the Computational Theory of Mind, and in addition call into question the very distinction between easy and (...) class='Hi'>hard problems in the contemporary philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Suppose Ted is in an ordinary house in good viewing conditions and believes red, his table is red, entirely because he sees his table and its color; he also believes not-white, it is false that his table is white and illuminated by a red light, because not-white is entailed by red. The following three claims about this table case clash, but each seems plausible: 1. Ted’s epistemic position is strong enough for him to know red. 2. Ted cannot know not-white (...) on the basis of red. 3. The epistemic closure principle, suitably restricted, is true. Stewart Cohen has called this three-way clash of intuitions the problem of easy knowledge. If we wish to resolve the clash without accepting skepticism, we seem to have two options. According to the hard argument, the best response is to reject 3. The easy argument rejects 2. But there may be a third alternative, the reverse argument, which rejects 1 without ceding a substantial amount of ground to the skeptic. In this essay I criticize recent versions of the reverse argument and the hard argument, thereby lending support to the easy argument. (shrink)

In attempting to solve a wide variety of tasks, people naturally seek to modify their external environment such that the physical space in which they work is more amenable or ‘congenial’ to achieving a desired outcome. Attempts to determine the effectiveness of certain artifacts or spatial reorganizations in aiding reasoners solve problems must be relativised to the difficulty of the task and the cognitive abilities of the reasoners. These factors were examined using a simple word production task with letter (...) tiles. Two sets of tiles that differed in terms of word production difficulty were selected. Participants were asked to produce as many words as they could within a finite time period for each letter set. In one group, participants were encouraged to rearrange or touch the tiles when producing words, and in the other group, participants could not interact with or point to the tiles. Participants were further split in a low and high verbal fluency group as a function of their score on the Thurstone word fluency test taken at the end of the experiment. In the high fluency group, letter rearrangement did not improve the participants’ ability to generate words. In contrast, in the low verbal fluency group, letter rearrangement significantly enhanced the ability to produce new words from both the hard and easy letter set. For these participants, the task was more taxing and the opportunity to restructure the letter set substantially elevated their performance. The advantages of a distributed cognition analysis of this and other reasoning tasks are discussed. (shrink)

How easy is it to construct life and consciousness from the building blocks of reality? Some philosophers seem to think both are pretty easy, whilst others take consciousness to be difficult but life to be no problem. In this paper I question whether we should in fact think this, could life after all be difficult to construct? I contend that the answer to this, much like the answer to how hard consciousness is to construct, largely depends on (...) the nature of life and the building blocks of reality. I will show that many of the considerations as to whether consciousness is hard to construct can be paralleled when thinking about the construction of life, and that given one prominent definition of life, it does in fact seem difficult to construct. I will conclude by offering a few suggestions for future research, and suggest that philosophers should be more hesitant in their affirmation that life is easy to construct. (shrink)

This paper sketches a new and somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. It drops the assumption that all conscious subjects’ experiences are features of one and the same world and instead associates different subjects with different “first-personally centred worlds”. We can think of these as distinct “first-personal realizers” of a shared “third-personal world”, where the latter is supervenient, in a sense to be explained. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects’ (...) first-personally centred worlds are all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The theory offers a novel way of capturing the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the proposed lens and reconsiders the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

Problem reports result from several misunderstandings about the nature and functions of phenomenal consciousness. I discuss some philosophical and scientific correctives that, taken together, can make the hard problem seem less hard.

How do separate brain processes bind to form unified, conscious percepts? This is the perceptual binding problem, which straddles neuroscience and psychology. In fact, two problems exist here: (1) the easy problem of how neural processes are unified, and (2) the hard problem of how this yields unified perceptual consciousness. Binding theories face familiar troubles with (1) and they do not come to grips with (2). This paper argues that neuroelectrical (electromagnetic-field) approaches may help with both (...) class='Hi'>problems. Concerning the easy problem, standard accounts of neural binding by synchrony, attention, and convergence raise serious difficulties. These are avoided by neuroelectrical approaches in which the brain’s field binds distributed processes in myriad neurons. Concerning the hard problem, binding theories do not squarely address how to get from neural unity to unified consciousness. This raises metaphysical difficulties involving reductions, emergence, etc. Neuroelectrical (and Russellian) approaches may help avoid these difficulties too. These approaches may thus deserve further investigation as binding theories. (shrink)

The strategy of divide and conquer is usually an excellent one, but it all depends on how you do the carving. Chalmer's attempt to sort the "easy" problems of consciousness from the "really hard" problem is not, I think, a useful contribution to research, but a major misdirector of attention, an illusion-generator. How could this be? Let me describe two somewhat similar strategic proposals, and compare them to Chalmers' recommendation.

Argues that Americans must improve their understanding of probability and logic.

The travelling salesman problem is one of the most popular problems in combinatorial optimization. It has been frequently used as a benchmark of the performance of evolutionary algorithms. For this reason, nowadays practitioners request new and more difficult instances of this problem. This leads to investigate how to evaluate the intrinsic difficulty of the instances and how to separate ease and difficult instances. By developing methodologies for separating easy- from difficult-to-solve instances, researchers can fairly test the performance of (...) their combinatorial optimizers. In this work, a methodology for evaluating the difficulty of instances of the travelling salesman problem near the optimal solution is proposed. The question is if the fitness landscape near the optimal solution encodes enough information to separate instances in function of their intrinsic difficulty. This methodology is based on the use of a random walk to explore the closeness of the optimal solution. The optimal solution is modified by altering one connection between two cities at each step, at the same time that the fitness of the altered solution is evaluated. This permits evaluating the slope of the fitness landscape. Later, and using the previous information, the difficulty of the instance is evaluated with random forests and artificial neural networks. In this work, this methodology is confronted with a wide set of instances. As a consequence, a methodology to separate the instances of the travelling salesman problem by their degree of difficulty is proposed and evaluated. (shrink)

David Chalmers burst onto the philosophical scene in the mid-1990s with his work on consciousness, which awakened slumbering zombie arguments against physicalism and transformed the explanatory gap into the hard problem of consciousness. The distinction between hard and easy problems of consciousness became a central dogma of the movement. Chalmers’ influence in philosophy and consciousness studies is unquestionable. But enthusiasts of Chalmers’ work on consciousness may be excused for not fully appreciating his own justification for drawing (...) the hard/easy distinction, or even exactly which distinction he is drawing. Consequently, it is not clear that the ‘Chalmers’ hard problem’ that has been widely influential is Chalmers’ ‘hard problem’ of consciousness. Chalmers’ ‘hard problem’ rests on, among other things: a methodological view about how philosophy—metaphysics, especially—ought to be conducted; a view about the requirements for explanation and reduction in philosophy and in the sciences; and a theory of the semantics of concepts.1 Although Chalmers writes that the present book is not intended as a foundation for his. (shrink)

A representative expression of current thinking on the ‘problem of consciousness’ runs as follows. There is one, impenetrably hard problem; and a host of soluble, and in this sense easy problems. The hard problem is: how could a physical system yield subjective states? How could there be something it is like to be a physical system? This problem corresponds to a concept of consciousness invariably labelled ‘phenomenal consciousness’. It is here, with respect to phenomenal consciousness, that (...) we encounter an ‘explanatory gap’, where it is this gap that makes the problem so hard. Nothing we can say about the workings of a physical system could begin to explain the existence and nature of subjective, phenomenal feel. (shrink)

The mind-body problem arises because all theories about mind-brain connections are too deeply obscure to gain general acceptance. This essay suggests a clear, simple, mind-brain solution that avoids all these perennial obscurities. (1) It does so, first of all, by reworking Strawson and Stoljar’s views. They argue that while minds differ from observable brains, minds can still be what brains are physically like behind the appearances created by our outer senses. This could avoid many obscurities. But to clearly do so, (...) it must first clear up its own deep obscurity about what brains are like behind appearances, and how they create the mind’s privacy, unity and qualia – all of which observable brains lack. (2) This can ultimately be done with a clear, simple assumption: our consciousness is the physical substance that certain brain events consist of beyond appearances. For example, the distinctive electrochemistry in nociceptor ion channels wholly consists of pain. This rejects that pain is a brain property: instead it’s a brain substance that occupies space in brains, and exerts forces by which it’s indirectly detectable via EEGs. (3) This assumption is justified because treating pains as physical substances avoids the perennial obscurities in mind-body theories. For example, this ‘clear physicalism’ avoids the obscure nonphysical pain of dualism and its spinoffs. Pain is instead an electrochemical substance. It isn’t private because it’s hidden in nonphysical minds, but instead because it’s just indirectly detected in the physical world in ways that leave its real nature hidden. (4) Clear physicalism also avoids puzzling reductions of private pains into more fundamental terms of observable brain activity. Instead pain is a hidden, private substance underlying this observable activity. Also, pain is fundamental in itself, for it’s what some brain activity fundamentally consists of. This also avoids reductive idealist claims that the world just exists in the mind. They yield obscure views on why we see a world that isn’t really out there. (5) Clear physicalism also avoids obscure claims that pain is information processing which is realizable in multiple hardwares (not just in electrochemistry). Molecular neuroscience now casts doubt on multiple realization. Also, it’s puzzling how abstract information gets ‘realized’ in brains and affects brains (compare ancient quandries on how universals get embodied in matter). A related idea is that of supervenient properties in nonreductive physicalism. They involve obscure overdetermination and emergent consciousness. Clear physicalism avoids all this. Pain isn’t an abstract property obscurely related to brains – it’s simply a substance in brains. (6) Clear physicalism also avoids problems in neuroscience. Neuroscience explains the mind’s unity in problematic ways using synchrony, attention, etc.. Clear physicalism explains unity in terms of intense neuroelectrical activity reaching continually along brain circuits as a conscious whole. This fits evidence that just highly active, highly connected circuits are fully conscious. Neuroscience also has problems explaining how qualia are actually encoded by brains, and how to get from these abstract codes to actual pain, fear, etc.. Clear physicalism explains qualia electrochemically, using growing evidence that both sensory and emotional qualia correlate with very specific electrical channels in neural receptors. Multiple-realization advocates overlook this important evidence. (7) Clear physicalism thus bridges the mind-brain gulf by showing how brains can possess the mind’s qualia, unity and privacy – and how minds can possess features of brain activity like occupying space and exerting forces. This unorthodox nonreductive physicalism may be where physicalism leads to when stripped of all its reductive and nonreductive obscurities. It offers a clear, simple mind-body solution by just filling in what neuroscience is silent about, namely, what brain matter is like behind perceptions of it. (shrink)

We distinguish between different problems of “aboutness”: the “hard” problem of explaining the everyday phenomenon of intentionality and three less challenging “easy” sets of problems concerning the posits of folk psychology, the notions of representation invoked in the mind‐brain sciences, and the intensionality (with an “s”) of mental language. The problem of intentionality is especially hard in that, as is the case with the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness, there is no clear path to (...) a solution using current methods. We argue that naturalistic theories of mental representation do not address the hard problem—either they are only intended to address the easy problems, or the claims they make help address the problem of intentionality only under undefended andprima facieimplausible assumptions to the effect that the hard problem reduces to some combination of the easy problems. We offer a positive account of what would be required to properly face up to the problem of intentionality. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the development of a “third-generation” rational choice theory by introducing a Multiple Player Approach for analysing collective action problems. Drawing on the foundational first and second generation works of Olson (The logic of collective action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1965) and Ostrom (Scand Polit Stud 23(1):3–16), we introduce five player types that we believe capture essential empirical features of many real world collective action problems: Blind Riders, Tough Riders, Hard Riders, (...) class='Hi'>Easy Riders, and Low Riders. We consider the complex interaction and dynamics that unfold among them. The main novelty of the analysis is to draw attention to the need for active societal support to effectively empower and reward hard riders for resolving collective action problems, particularly when facing external shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit, and financial crises. (shrink)

It is often claimed in parts of the psychiatric literature that neuroscientific research into the biological basis of mental disorder undermines dualism in the philosophy of mind. This paper shows that such a claim does not apply to all forms of dualism. Focusing on Kenneth Kendler’s discussion of the mind–body problem in biological psychiatry, I argue that such criticism of dualism often conflates the psychological and phenomenal concepts of the mental. Moreover, it fails to acknowledge that there are different varieties (...) of dualism, and so overlooks the important metaphysical insights of contemporary dualist philosophers. I argue that while the neuroscientific research underpinning biological psychiatry challenges the traditional dualism of René Descartes, it does not pose any problem for the more modern dualism of David Chalmers. It is possible to take seriously the scientific claims of biological psychiatry while holding that this latter form of dualism is true. This has implications for the positioning of the mind–body problem in psychiatry. While the “easy” problem of explaining psychological processes is relevant to the aims of biological psychiatry, psychiatrists need not worry about the “hard” problem of consciousness. (shrink)

It has become popular to distinguish between phenomenal and non-phenomenal kinds of mentality and consciousness, for example, phenomenal and functional kinds of consciousness, or qualia and cognition. As Chalmers has so famously suggested, explaining mental phenomena like functionally “conscious” states constitutes some of the “easy problems” in philosophy of mind; explaining phenomenal consciousness, on the other hand, is the “hard problem.” One difficulty with this distinction is that it leaves open the nomological possibility of systems (“phenomenal zombies”) (...) which are conscious in the functional sense but which have no experiential, subjective life. Chalmers=s response to this challenge is to argue that qualia naturally supervene on functional organization. In defense of this thesis, Chalmers introduces two closely related thought experiments: fading qualia and dancing qualia. In this paper, I challenge the arguments he develops out of these thought experiments. I argue that they are unconvincing - indeed, question begging - and ultimately based on an assumption which suggests that his view of cognition, and the hard/easy problem distinction more generally, is overly simplistic and misleading. (shrink)