The hard problem of consciousness

[skiba]

One of the biggest mysteries in science is consciousness.....Or is it?

The term hard problem of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers[1], 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. That is, their proposed solutions, regardless of how complex or poorly understood they may be, can be entirely consistent with the modern materialistic conception of natural phenomenon. Hard problems are distinct from this set because they "persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained".[2]

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?"
* "Phenomenal Natures are categorically different than behavior"

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. [3]

I know we have alot of materialists here, so would like their take on this, and ofcourse the non-materialistic POV too.

 

[leon_heller]

Dennett's view of consciousness is materialistic . He doesn't even believe that qualia exist, unlike most philosophers.

Leon

 

[westprog]

One of the biggest mysteries in science is consciousness.....Or is it?



I know we have alot of materialists here, so would like their take on this, and ofcourse the non-materialistic POV too.

I've found, in several discussions here and other places, that a number of philosophers start off by dismissing the aspects of reality that are fundamental to me as irrelevant or illusory. I wonder if they have the same meaning for them.

 

[skiba]

I've found, in several discussions here and other places, that a number of philosophers start off by dismissing the aspects of reality that are fundamental to me as irrelevant or illusory. I wonder if they have the same meaning for them.

"Reality", no matter how we see it, isn't really a relative issue here.
We can't be certain of "reality", we might as well be hooked up to the matrix. What matters is, we are experiencing this, be it illusionary or not. We can't deny the experience itself.

 

[JoeEllison]

Simply put: there IS no "hard problem of consciousness." The assumptions that lead people to believe that there's a "hard problem" are false, or at least unnecessary from a practical standpoint. There is the assumption that something called a "mind" exists in a discrete manner, and that this discrete existence is somehow tied to a "mental plane" that lies beyond what we generally describe as "reality."

For instance, imagine a car's engine. It consists of physical moving parts, a fuel source, and an electrical energy source. When the engine is in operation, matter and energy interact to create a dynamic system that we can describe as "running engine." There is no reason to describe that system as having some sort of static existence, or that there is an element to that system that exists beyond the operation of the components. We don't treat "running" as anything more or less than a description of a process, with no real existence outside of the operation of the engine.

From a materialist's point of view, a human nervous system is a kind of "engine", and the interactions of matter and energy that comprise that dynamic system can be described as "consciousness." "Consciousness" is a process, not something with a distinct existence beyond the physical.

 

[paximperium]

I don't truly understand these "hard" Problems at all because all of them seem to have some underlying bias in how it is phrased to begin with.

They are essentially a "God of the Gaps argument" for consciousness. Think up biased and flawed arguments that are unfalsifiable and have no answer as of yet as "evidence" for your belief in consciousness.

 

[RandFan]

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that there is such a thing as HPC (Hard Problem of Consciousness. The mistake is drawing conclusions from the fact that there is a problem. That's argument from ignorance or argument from personal incredulity and it's a fallacy.

As a former dualist I would like to take a stab.

* "Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?"

Why not? The question is a non-starter. The word "should" isn't likely to lead to any understanding regardless of whether or not reality is monist, materialistic or whether or not there is some god or a homunculus (soul/mind/whatever).

* "How is it that some organisms are subjects of experience?"
* "Why does awareness of sensory information exist at all?"

We don't completely understand yet but we are making amazing progress in the fields of cognitive and neuroscience. I dare say that many if not most of us (myself included) are not even able to comprehend all that is known and understood in these disciplines.

* "Why do qualia exist?"
* "Why is there a subjective component to experience?"
* "Why aren't we philosophical zombies?"
* "Phenomenal Natures are categorically different than behavior"

Why does gravity exist? Unlike some of the other posters in this forum I find these to be very interesting questions but like the other posters who may or may not respond I must agree that our inability to answer them tells us precisely nothing.

Questions are not answers. They never have been. Questions are important because they can lead to insights. So long as we don't draw conclusions from the fact that the questions seem to us contradictory or somehow unanswerable or counterintuitive. To do so is to be ignorant and superstitious like those in the past who imagined that it was spirits who made the stairs creak at night when there was no one walking on them. It turns out it was just the contraction of wood as the wood cooled.

 

[Delvo]

Simply put: there IS no "hard problem of consciousness." The assumptions that lead people to believe that there's a "hard problem" are false, or at least unnecessary from a practical standpoint. There is the assumption that something called a "mind" exists in a discrete manner, and that this discrete existence is somehow tied to a "mental plane" that lies beyond what we generally describe as "reality."

That isn't the "problem". It's just some people's solution to it. The problem is a question, and you've just described an answer to it, not the question itself.

 

[JoeEllison]

That isn't the "problem". It's just some people's solution to it. The problem is a question, and you've just described an answer to it, not the question itself.

The "question" is based on invalid assumptions, and is likely meaningless.

 

[Delvo]

No, only the answer you're talking about to it is. But the answer is not the question.

 

[rocketdodger]

That isn't the "problem". It's just some people's solution to it. The problem is a question, and you've just described an answer to it, not the question itself.

You can also say that sitting in one place is "some people's solution" to the problem of finding your way back after you become lost in the woods.

And in this case, that is a very good analogy. For materialists like Joe and I, there just isn't a problem to begin with. If you insist that our solution to the problem is to avoid creating it in the first place ... then I suppose you are right, but...

 

[JoeEllison]

No, only the answer you're talking about to it is. But the answer is not the question.

Nope. I say that the question is stupid. It is like asking "how many invisible gremlins does it take to make a car's engine run?" The "answer" is that the question doesn't make any sense, because the assumptions that the question is based on are wrong.

 

[Roboramma]

Nope. I say that the question is stupid. It is like asking "how many invisible gremlins does it take to make a car's engine run?" The "answer" is that the question doesn't make any sense, because the assumptions that the question is based on are wrong.

Why is the question stupid? I don't see why we would conclude that conciousness should exist if we didn't already know that it does.

Take computers, for instance. No one that I know really thinks that as they are now they are conscious beings. At what point could data processing move on to experiencing?
We are just matter, reacting to physical laws. Why should this lead to the experience of the taste of a peach? I can see that it would lead to beings that act as though they experience a peach, but actually experiencing it? How? Why?

Of course, you could say that experience itself is an illusion. I think that's a possible solution to the problem. I think there may be others that we haven't thought of.

I certainly don't think that dualism is a solution, because it still doesn't answer the question, it just posits a magical entity (the soul) that is "by it's nature" conscious. How and why is the soul conscious? Basically: "It just is". In other words, it offers no solution at all.

But I don't see that the question is stupid. It's just one we don't have an answer to yet, and shouldn't pretend that we do.

Edit: Nice post Randfan.

 

[Jeff Corey]

As posed in the OP, the question is, "Why do we have qualititative phenomenal experiences?"
What are they and why are they supposed to be harder to explain than the other processes, such as discrimination, mentioned in the quote?

 

[Roboramma]

As posed in the OP, the question is, "Why do we have qualititative phenomenal experiences?"
What are they and why are they supposed to be harder to explain than the other processes, such as discrimination, mentioned in the quote?

Because discrimination is something that can easily be explained as a product of logical processes similar to those that take place inside of computers. It maybe differ from them in degree, but not in kind - it's a form of information processing.

Consciousness, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have anything to do with those things.

I say seem on purpose, of course. It very well may be related to them in a way that will become obvious to us, it may turn out to be completely illusory, though I don't quite understand how. But it's clearly not a phenomenon whose relationship to the stuff which causes it is in any way clear.

 

[Delvo]

Nope. I say that the question is stupid. It is like asking "how many invisible gremlins does it take to make a car's engine run?"

For an engine, the actual equivalent question to the problem of consciousness is not "how many gremlins" but "how does it work". And the difference is that every single result the engine produces is explainable so there's nothing left for the gremlins to explain. Gremlins would be one (wrong) answer to the question, but aren't built in to it. Likewise, if I ponder how I can sit here and think of myself as myself and have what I call thoughts and sensations, the question I'm pondering isn't "where does my soul come from" but "how does this perception happen and what's perceiving it". The spirit is inserted not in the question but in one potential answer to it.

And unlike the engine, the answer is not explainable from what we know about brains so far. Inputs/causes and outputs/effects/results must be of the same basic type: motion in and motion out for the engine example (just in different directions and speeds), atoms in one molecular arrangement in and atoms in another molecular arrangement out for a neurochemical example, and ultimately, matter & movement & forces in and matter & movement & forces out for all rawly physical examples you could name. But cogito ergo sum is not a chemical or kinetic thing. It's a perception, and that makes it a result with no known cause, unless and until someone does one of two things: insert a spirit to do the perceiving, or explain how a pile of atoms can perceive itself based on atomic interactions alone (even while some of the atoms are cosntantly entering and exiting the pile). You've called it a "process" instead of a thing, but that's just a name, not an explanation. Molecules don't explain how "I" can sit here and feel what I feel, particularly if "I" am not even a real thing at all, because all that chemistry tells is where the particles go.

The "answer" is that the question doesn't make any sense, because the assumptions that the question is based on are wrong.

The question doesn't have assumptions. It's what you get when you don't make assumptions and you notice a hole in the available facts (again, not "where does my spirit come from" but "what is perception and how does it happen", because the latter doesn't have the spirit built in to it yet). Filling the hole with assumptions (for those who do it at all) comes in the next step after that. You're squishing two separate steps in this line of reasoning into one.

 

[RandFan]

For materialists like Joe and I, there just isn't a problem to begin with.

That you don't think there is a problem doesn't mean that there is not one. Denial isn't an answer either. Thing is, if there wasn't a problem then neuro- and cognitive scientists wouldn't be trying solve it. Now, let's be clear, if you are saying that by "problem" you mean an intractable one as some would suggest then you are right. But HPC is a valid scientific question, actually it's a whole bunch of questions that include the binding problem and others.

Many people say that the hard problem does not exist, or that it is a pseudo-problem. I think they fall into two categories - those few who have seen the depths of the problem and come up with some insight into it, and those who just skate over the abyss. The latter group might heed Nagel's advice when he says "Certain forms of perplexity—for example, about freedom, knowledge, and the meaning of life—seem to me to embody more insight than any of the supposed solutions to those problems." (Nagel 1986 p 4).

This perplexity can easily be found. For example, pick up any object - a cup of tea or a pen will do - and just look, smell, and feel its texture. Do you believe there is a real objective cup there, with actual tea in it, made of atoms and molecules? Aren't you also having a private subjective experience of the cup and the taste of the tea - the 'what it is like' for you? What is this experience made of? It seems to be something completely different from actual tea and molecules. When the objective world out there and our subjective experiences of it seem to be such different kinds of thing, how can one be caused by, or arise from, or even depend upon, the other? --Blackmore

Being a materialist, like Blackmore, does not in any way solve HPC or simply make it go away. One can be a materialist and realize that we don't understand how subjective experience arises from an objective material world and declaring that there is no problem tells us precisely nothing. It solves nothing. It is only rhetorical and not in any way scientific. Declaring that there is no problem is akin to saying "god did it". It is saying that subjective experience just happens like god just created the world.

If you know how objective reality leads to subjective experience then let the world in on it and pick up your Nobel prize. I assure you it is waiting for anyone who can adequately explain it and I suspect that the folks who are currently reverse engineering the brain may very well be the ones to take it home.

 

[RandFan]

...it may turn out to be completely illusory, though I don't quite understand how.

I suspect that it is but then we run into a problem, what is having this illusion? I don't believe in a homunculus but saying something is illusory becomes recursive and brings up a whole host of other questions. Illusory as opposed to what? Reality? Why don't we see reality? I think using the concept of illusion simply has become a short hand to explain that which we really don't understand. It's god did it all over again and turtles all the way down.

 

[skiba]

Take computers, for instance. No one that I know really thinks that as they are now they are conscious beings. At what point could data processing move on to experiencing?
We are just matter, reacting to physical laws. Why should this lead to the experience of the taste of a peach? I can see that it would lead to beings that act as though they experience a peach, but actually experiencing it? How? Why?

Of course, you could say that experience itself is an illusion. I think that's a possible solution to the problem. I think there may be others that we haven't thought of.

My thoughts exactly.

Computation and transfering information based on the physical properties of the media, explains nothing about consciousness.

Of course, you could say that experience itself is an illusion. I think that's a possible solution to the problem. I think there may be others that we haven't thought of.

I really don't see how you could explain that experience is not real?
This is one of the arguments Dan Dennett suggests. "consciousness is just a trick of the mind". Well, again something is experiening that trick. This is a form of circular logic. It's a way to scrub the HPC under the rug.


@RandFan

Totally agree

 

[autumn1971]

@ RandFan,
I agree that "HPC is a valid scientific question", I simply think that it is a rather empty philosophical question (or it that last bit a tautology?).
I look at the existance of subjective experience as simply a step in the way piles of atoms behave. The simplest organisms have at least a rudiment of self/other, if only in the most easily explained chemical terms: most stuff is kept "out", some is allowed to become "part of self" through simple chemical reactions or osmosis. More complex organisms percieve more portions of reality through easily explained processes: acting on physical or chemical gradients in order to better their existance. These examples are not what anyone would call "subjective", as they are merely response to stimuli, but it is only a small step to the behavior of the simpler animals, which are also not regarded as self-aware. Fish, for example, have never, as far as I can tell, been described as conscious of their existance, but they display behavior which is much more complex than billions of fishermen have been able to simplify to stimulus/response.
At some point a pile of atoms has demonstrated that it has actions difficult to predict from the last pile of atoms we examined.
Humans are more aware of their reality than paramecia, and in easily demonstrated ways. Humans are also more aware than fish, but in ways different from the ways that both humans and fish are different from paramecia. Dogs are different from fish too, but describing how seems to put them pretty near humans. The great apes, as well as porpoises, whales, elephants, and others, have awareness of reality that suggests that they have subjective experiences of it.
I apologize for rambling, my point is that there is no reason for the "Great Big Philosophical Question" when there are a bunch of good little scientific questions.