Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness

by David J. Chalmers

Chalmers is best known for formulating what he calls the "hard problem of consciousness," in both his 1995 paper "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" and his 1996 book The Conscious Mind. He makes a distinction between "easy" problems of consciousness, such as explaining object discrimination or verbal reports, and the single hard problem, which could be stated "why does the feeling which accompanies awareness of sensory information exist at all?" The essential difference between the (cognitive) easy problems and the (phenomenal) hard problem is that the former are at least theoretically answerable via the dominant strategy in the philosophy of mind: physicalism. Chalmers argues for an "explanatory gap" from the objective to the subjective, and criticizes physicalist explanations of mental experience, making him a dualist. Chalmers characterizes his view as "naturalistic dualism": naturalistic because he believes mental states supervene "naturally" on physical systems (such as brains); dualist because he believes mental states are ontologically distinct from and not reducible to physical systems. He has also characterized his view by more traditional formulations such as property dualism.

Genres: Philosophy

27 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1995

About the author

David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and codirector of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University. He is the author of The Conscious Mind, The Character of Consciousness, and Constructing the World. He has given the John Locke Lectures and has been awarded the Jean Nicod Prize. He is known for formulating the “hard problem” of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard’s play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the “extended mind,” which says that the tools we use can become parts of our minds.

Reviews

[Nicolas]

Someone need to explain to Chalmers, that words matter and that when you are making logical arguments you need to consider them carefully. If you say two things are isomorphic you need to provide at least some basic argument on why you consider them so. And when you use the word "experience" about 20 time per page... you should probably define it ;)

I still don't understand how he might have read his own sentences and came to the conclusion, that these might be convincing arguments. He himself brings countless examples where a gap in our knowledge was closed by science but then just states without any explanation that in the case of consciousness this is very different and people that think that explaining the processes will not suffice to explain experience "are not making a conceptual mistake" for "This is a nontrivial further question". That's all - no further explanation.

I feel like Chalmers is not really interested in a scientific (meaning hypotheses driven & valuing truth more than your own opinion) approach. He basically already starts with a dualistic mindset makes a few far reaching assumptions that he doesn't explain and then rambles 27 pages about how game changing his approach is.

[Laura Méndez]

Aunque podemos entender los procesos cerebrales y su relación con el comportamiento, la experiencia subjetiva (lo que se siente al estar consciente) es un problema más profundo y distinto, al que llama el "problema difícil". Propone que la conciencia no puede ser explicada completamente solo a través de explicaciones físicas, sugiriendo que se necesitan nuevas teorías que consideren la conciencia como una característica fundamental del universo.

[Medhat ullah]

hard problem of consciousness(qualia)

[Antek]

Good stuff

[Lara the Smut Raider 🏹]

Easy to read paper that leaves me eager to learn more and get into “The Conscious Mind: In Searching of a Fundamental Theory” next. Let’s fucking goooooo.

[David]

I liked the first 2/3 of this essay, where he presents valuable insights and approaches and great critiques of popular approaches. In the last 1/3, he presents several of his own theories in which I see major flaws.