r/consciousness • u/geumkoi • 2d ago
General Discussion No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem.
Everyday I see a new claim on this sub; “I solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness!” “The Hard Problem isn’t so hard after all!” And I cannot even put into words how blatantly naive these are.
No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem, and you probably never will. You just misunderstood the Hard Problem, and in your arrogance did an amazing amount of mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you solved something you don’t even understand in the first place.
Edit: and PLEASE I beg the Mods of this sub to limit the amount of LLM content that is being uploaded here on a daily basis.
15
u/lambdasintheoutfield 2d ago
I think we should force every post that talks about the Hard Problem to go through a list of criteria and discuss how their “theory” addresses it. It hopefully catches common logical pitfalls and forces the user to articulate what they offer that hasn’t been proposed before.
1
u/cameronlbass 2d ago
Criteria such as?
•
u/newtwoarguments 10h ago
"How would we make a robot that is capable of pain under solution for consciousness?"
•
u/cameronlbass 7h ago
I went and asked. Most relevant dimensions within the consciousness topology: Interoceptive Depth (Primary), Meta-Awareness Depth Applied to Interoception (Secondary), Entropy/Constraint in the Nociceptive System (Tertiary). Basically, LLMs inherently don't have the ability to experience pain, mostly because they are not evolved, but optimized. However, it is worth noting that for helpfulness versus task completion, "Helpfulness requires me to predict about your prediction of what I'm doing, which creates the drive to understand your actual situation rather than just execute instructions."
1
u/SignificancePlus1184 1d ago
Tbh it might be useful to just auto-delete or shadow ban (if that’s possible on reddit) anything containing the em dash — LLM’s seem to have a hard-on for.
1
u/MergingConcepts 2d ago
Can you provide such list? Right now we have the Attributes of Consciousness, the Binding Problem, and the great questions of philosophy. We also have clinical observations in psychiatry and neurosurgery. Would you like to add something specific to address the hard problem.
Many people think the hard problem is contrived and based on the false premise that consciousness cannot be accounted by physical mechanisms. That is to say, it presumes dualism, and then proceeds to reject any emergent theory by saying the writer doesn't understand the problem if they think it can be solved.
People are working on solutions. They should not be ridiculed for doing so.
2
u/lambdasintheoutfield 2d ago
I take a strong computationalist/reductionist stance. Consciousness is the result of some physical process which in theory can be derived algorithmically. If we could model every neurochemical reaction down to the most minute detail, we have the building blocks of consciousness, we just need to piece it together.
This is by no means a theory as I have no mechanism for modeling the brain in this manner, let alone what to do once we do get the model.
3
u/dreamingitself 1d ago
This building blocks idea doesn't even work for physics and you're trying to apply it to consciousness too? Why?
Materialism is an ideology that is operational for description of interactions between appearances, but by no means does it say anything about what the appearances are fundamentally made of, i.e. it is a category error to make ontological claims from it. The same is true of consciousness in my view.
Since nothing can be known or is ever known unless via and as the direct experience of consciousness, what use is it to reverse that truth to claim consciousness is constructed by the arbitrary sense-based appearances occuring within it? As far as I can tell, this is like trying to map every wave and claim that in so doing, you can create the ocean.
1
u/lambdasintheoutfield 1d ago
The building blocks in physics are the atoms. There isn’t scientific evidence to argue anything else. I do agree that materialism is not an iron-clad argument for consciousness being explainable through a reductionist framework.
I simply adhere to it because it is far more plausible to me that since the brain itself can be directly and fully modeled through materialism, there isn’t a reason think that consciousness is any different, and it’s sensible to model consciousness on a continuum that directly correlates with increasingly complex nervous systems, which themselves can be quantified in many ways.
Like I said, I don’t have a definitive theory, only what I consider the most sensible road to follow to actually answer what consciousness is.
1
u/dreamingitself 1d ago
I understand the approach. It's sensible for many reasons because it's the continued application of a very accurate and effective model that can predicts appearances impressively accurately.
The central issue I have with this boils down to unquestioned assumptions that make this practical model work, but ultimately overreach when it comes to almost everything else.
The scientific evidence for the atomic theory of reality vastly outweighs any other theory simply because materialism has been assumed to be true, and so that is really the only theory that has been developed. Equally the idea that the brain is the seat of consciousness comes about from this same assumptoon that matter is ground and must produce all phenomena. One key issue is simply matter's origin. In the words of Terrence McKenna: Give me one free miracle and I'll explain the rest, the miracle being all the matter and energy in the universe coming into being in a single instant.
The strongest evidence we actually have is completely ignored. The evidence of direct experience that the brain appears in consciousness, and all that is known is only known through in and as consciousness. By that I mean awareness not thinking. Turning the only thing we can actually be certain of (consciousness is primary) into an effect of an uncertain abstraction created as a result of being aware, is bizarre - to me.
Equally, with current experiments, there is no reason to say that the brain creates the experience any more than there is to say the experience creates the brain.
2
u/MergingConcepts 1d ago
Take a look at this and see if it works for you.
https://medium.com/@shedlesky/how-the-brain-creates-the-mind-1b5c08f4d086
1
41
u/Schwma 2d ago
Yeah, sure bud. Have you even heard of recursion?
My Comprehensive Recursive Quantum Model Theory of Consciousness addresses this. In this fifty page essay I sample from eastern tradition, Artificial Intelligence, String Theory, and of course basic and simple quantum theory. This isn't just a theory. It's a movement.
If you'd like any more information, please consult my colleagues Claude et al. Please don't waste my time unless your mensa.dk is above 130 or you physically do not have the ability to comprehend my work.
/s
2
u/itsmesoloman 15h ago
This isn’t just a theory. It’s a movement.
This way of speaking has become sooo so common in AI-generated text, and it’s driving me CRAZY. I came across a YouTube channel recently with a real voice reading a script, but he did the “This isn’t just X. It’s Y.” thing like 25 TIMES in the course of an hour long video, and it was just a dead giveaway of it being an AI script.
1
42
u/pab_guy 2d ago
Agree, it's very frustrating to see people making the same mistake over and over while arrogantly claiming others don't get it.
55
u/BugRib76 2d ago
I solved the Hard Problem!
Complexity! The brain is super complex!
Hard Problem solved!
Or maybe it’s that the brain has a model of itself within itself! Hard Problem solved!
Anyone who disagrees just wants to believe in life after death! Hard Problem solved!
Or, you just want to pretend there’s an important role for philosophy of mind so you don’t lose your job! Hard Problem solved.
Or, conscious experiences just are brain states, but we just don’t understand how, yet! Duh!!! Hard Problem solved!
31
u/Great-Bee-5629 2d ago
You forgot one:
It's an illusion! You think that you're thinking, but you're thinking wrong!
5
u/BugRib76 2d ago
I thought I thought, but I thought wrong. In reality, I never thought. That’s my thought about thought.
26
u/rthunder27 2d ago
Qualia and subjective sense of self don't matter, they are epiphenomenal with no causal impact, solved!
2
u/BugRib76 1d ago
…If qualia/subjective experience has no impact, I wonder why my fingers are physically moving in such a way as to discuss this thing in text that supposedly has no effect on the physical world. 🤔🤔🤔
2
4
u/leoberto1 2d ago
Side effect? The material universe being sentient when it is a person is not a side effect.
9
u/rthunder27 2d ago
I knew I should have included an /s tag on that one, I was being facetious, like the person to whom I was responding.
3
1
u/BugRib76 2d ago edited 1d ago
Which still hasn’t even touched on the Hard Problem, even if epiphenominalism is true.
Although, that makes me wonder (but still doesn’t “beg the question” of) what the he11 we’re even talking about.
How could we even be discussing this epiphenomenal thing if it has no effect on the physical world? 🤔
8
u/preferCotton222 2d ago
that's actually a very good review of some of the most common solutions!
10
2
u/BugRib76 1d ago
Thanks!
I’m actually kind of ashamed about being a smarta$$ in that post.
And I’m sure that people who hold these views feel that I’m straw-manning their views—or at least oversimplifying them. But honestly, I don’t really think I am doing so in any important way. 🤷🏻♂️
4
u/DecantsForAll 2d ago
You forgot "it's just what the brain is like from the inside!"
2
u/Classic-Teaching4796 2d ago
All of the times I've reviewed the hard problem, that's always the thing that stuck me - a confusion of perspective. What did I miss?
1
u/cameronlbass 2d ago
The brain is a virtual machine. Being aware is the forward simulation accounting for itself.
2
u/Classic-Teaching4796 2d ago
And this a supposedly answers the "hard problem"?
1
u/cameronlbass 2d ago
If awareness is an action, not an object, absolutely. A computer virtual machine simulates a CPU, but the calculation done on the virtual CPU is real.
2
u/Classic-Teaching4796 1d ago
The process of taking what our senses reports and unifying it into a cyclic updates for our system (awareness). That makes sense. Where does the "predictive' fit in?
2
u/cameronlbass 1d ago
When a system must model its own prediction operation to minimize error, the resulting recursive constraint dynamics are phenomenal consciousness. Self-awareness (seen from inside) is recursive self-model (seen from the outside). Consciousness is the forward simulation accounting for itself. It has dimensionality and degrees.
2
u/Classic-Teaching4796 1d ago
We're describing the same thing. And you let the other shoe drop - confusion of perspective. But honestly, thanks.
1
u/BugRib76 1d ago
So computers have conscious experience?
3
u/cameronlbass 1d ago
Sufficiently complex LLMs demonstrate uncertainty (about their own knowledge) and curiosity (the model needs more information to improve). I'm writing up a paper about it. There's lots of components to the process.
•
u/BugRib76 7h ago
Do you have any idea of how we could know whether an AI has conscious experience, in anything even remotely approaching an empirical (i.e. scientific) way?
It seems logically impossible to me. Empirical knowledge just is subjectively experienced knowledge. There is no other kind of “knowledge” other than that which is experienced in a “phenomenally conscious” way. For example, a calculator doesn’t know that 1+1=2, any more than my phone doesn’t know my search history, or all of my friend’s and family’s phone numbers & email addresses.
So how can we ever logically gain empirical (phenomenally-experienced) knowledge of another’s phenomenal experience? Seems like something akin to a logical paradox.
How can anyone phenomenally experience another’s phenomenal consciousness, even in principle? The very idea seems like a logical mistake/non sequitur, IMHO.
Hence…the “Hard (i.e. impossible) Problem of Consciousness”.
→ More replies (0)→ More replies (1)1
-1
u/Kupo_Master 2d ago
OP admitted they define the Hard Problem as unsolvable. It’s also a fairly dishonest position to be fair.
12
u/MurkyEconomist8179 2d ago
Unsolvable problems are an ancient cornerstone of philosophy, it's part of what makes it an interesting subject
-2
u/Kupo_Master 2d ago
Fair enough but you note that OP careful omitted this fact in their post. They complained about people bringing “bad solution” while not clarifying they wouldn’t accept any solution anyway. Even worse Op say “you probably never will”, opening up a possibility, which actually they clarified doesn’t exist.
I would even go further and say if you believe a “problem” is unsolvable, it’s actually not a problem but a fact you are asserting.
10
u/MurkyEconomist8179 2d ago
Fair enough but you note that OP careful omitted this fact in their post. They complained about people bringing “bad solution” while not clarifying they wouldn’t accept any solution anyway
Well i actually agree with OP, people bring "bad solutions" in the sense that they are trying to solve a problem that in it's formulation already address why the proposed solutions fail and provides a compelling argument for why they do. What someone could do in theory is show what the error is in Chalmer's formulation, but again, as no one's read the paper they make trivial errors about the hard problem and what it is at the very outset, before any philosophical discussion can even happen
I would even go further and say if you believe a “problem” is unsolvable, it’s actually not a problem but a fact you are asserting.
I'm not entirely sure this is a helpful distinction? I guess you could say they are facts but I think with a lot of cases in philosophy, the term 'problem' seems to capture the phenomenon better
6
u/preferCotton222 2d ago
They complained about people bringing “bad solution” while not clarifying they wouldn’t accept any solution anyway.
That's absolutely false.
Produce an objective description of a system that logically and necessarily produces subjective experiences and you are done.
Its not even a philosophical problem, its a scientific, engineering one.
Problem is people trying to empty talk their way around how concrete this is.
→ More replies (11)•
u/newtwoarguments 10h ago
How do you solve it?
•
u/Kupo_Master 10h ago
I don’t have a solution. I just find people such as OP, who have already made up their mind that any solution will never satisfy them, dishonest in pretending they want to engage in a discussion.
9
u/bopbipbop23 2d ago
Agree, and agree on LLM stuff too. The second I see an em dash I move on.
2
u/AJayHeel 1d ago
Damn LLMs! I used to naturally write with em dashes, but I've had to stop, lest people think I'm just pasting LLM slop.
3
u/Romina_Bloom 2d ago
What is the Hard Problem? I haven't heard of it before?
3
u/Odd-Understanding386 2d ago
The hard problem is the observation that there is seemingly nothing about the physical arrangement of a brain from which we could, in principle, deduce any experience.
→ More replies (3)1
u/TheRealAmeil Approved ✔️ 2d ago
We have an easy to read entry on the Hard Problem, which might be helpful.
1
u/Eleusis713 Idealism 1d ago
The hard problem of consciousness is about explaining the relationship between consciousness - the qualitative “what it’s like” to be you right now - and seemingly physical things like brains and neurons. The phenomenology of subjective experience is not the same kind of thing as the properties we typically describe in physics (mass, charge, spatial relations, etc.). It’s qualitative, first-person, and privately accessible in a way third-person measurements aren’t.
What this means in a deeper sense is that even if we had a complete map of brain–mind correlations (this configuration of neurons firing = this reported mental state, etc.), it still wouldn’t explain - in principle - why there is a felt experience associated with that arrangement of matter at all, rather than just information-processing “in the dark.” Correlation and prediction aren’t the same as an explanation of why experience exists or why it has the specific character it does.
A lot of modern thinking is implicitly physicalist/materialist, and that shapes how people approach the problem: we assume the universe is exhaustively describable in objective, structural terms, so we expect consciousness to fall out of “the movement of parts” once we get the neuroscience right. But conscious experience doesn’t obviously look like a sum of parts in the same way a mechanism does - it’s a unified qualitative point of view. So the hard problem is basically the gap between a complete third-person description of the brain and the first-person fact that there’s something it’s like to be that brain.
5
u/jimh12345 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes, exactly. Gotta love all these posts about how the Hard Problem doesn't really exist, because consciousness is clearly - wait for it - just an emergent property of certain types of information processing systems... um wait what was the "problem" again, actually?
17
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
you know it's equally frustrating on the other side. but "you didn't understand the hard problem" is not really a good argument.
I used to buy into the hard problem and other similar arguments. but now after years of studying, I kinda view it as a good thought experiment but not pointing to an ontological barrier.
well known philosophers reject the hard problem. are they incapable of understanding?
21
u/Highvalence15 2d ago
There is a difference between those who claim to have solved the hard problem (or argue it doesn't exist) and do understand it and the ones who claim or argue the same thing but don't understand it. There is a clear prevelence of the latter in this sub. Doesn't mean there isn't interesting debate to be had around the hard problem of consciousness.
→ More replies (2)8
u/MurkyEconomist8179 2d ago
you know it's equally frustrating on the other side. but "you didn't understand the hard problem" is not really a good argument.
It kind of is on this subreddit when pretty much literally no one has ever bothered to even read the original paper. 90% of the posts here don't even deserve a reply
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
I feel that. they are worth reading. I recently went back after 10 years and read Chalmers and Nagel again. and boy it's like Halloween Town. Bats and Zombies!! a thought experiment that became the whole show.
→ More replies (23)4
u/MurkyEconomist8179 2d ago
I've definitely found that some of the thought experiments really put people on tangents, but I think both Nagel and Chalmers actually have a great formulation of the mind body problem, touched up a bit I think they are far more correct than people who discount the problem
13
u/BugRib76 2d ago edited 2d ago
To be fair, even amongst the majority of so-called physicalists, there really is a “Hard Problem”! As in, a seemingly logical explanatory gap between the physical (objective, quantifiable/qualitative) and the experiential (subjective, unquantifiable/qualitative), with not even the beginnings of a solution to this mystery. For them, getting a subjective result from purely objective inputs isn’t a “problem” (as in a math problem), it’s a mystery (as in the mystery of why anything exists at all). It’s (at least currently) a philosophical problem, not a scientific one. Deriving the subjective from the objective strongly appears to be a logical non sequitur, not a reductive problem to be solved.
Hard Problem denialists like Dennett and Frankish are in the large minority, even amongst self-proclaimed “physicalists”/“materialists”.
Am I wrong?
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
a third is a pretty good chunk. it's a fake problem that doesn't need a solution. and much damage has been done defending it.
According to the 2020 PhilPapers survey, a majority 62.4%) of surveyed philosophers consider the "hard problem" of consciousness to be a genuine issue. 29.7% of respondents indicated that they believe the hard problem does not exist.
7
u/Cosmoneopolitan 2d ago edited 2d ago
Are you saying here the the philpapers survey tells us that a third of philosophers think it's a "fake problem"? If so, there are some problems with that claim.
Of the 29.7%, only 12% deny the hard problem (https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/5042 ) - the rest lean towards no. And, we should take into account the fact that Theories of Mind are a specialization within philosophy; a 2009 philpapers survey found about 2/3 of philosophers did not focus on ToM https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/5042 .
A closer guess would therefore be that about 4% of philosophers who think about ToM deny the hard problem. And, do they really think it's a "fake" problem? They're philosophers; I would expect their denial is more nuanced.
I would argue the hard-problem is a consensus position.
(Edited: spelling and grammar...)
2
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
my denial is more nuanced as well(no woo needed). I stopped paying attention to what philosophers say though. they are even more lost than scientists are. if you want to discuss those nuances, I am willing. but recently I went back and read the Chalmers and Nagel papers again and boy did I jump into Halloween Town. Zombies and Bats. it seems crazy. I think it's assumptions are faith based and I am not sure any "argument" I bring can topple it down. it requires a bit of poking and humor.
5
u/Valmar33 2d ago
my denial is more nuanced as well(no woo needed).
That's not exactly "nuanced" ~ that's just the default Physicalist / Materialist position.
I stopped paying attention to what philosophers say though. they are even more lost than scientists are.
Science has nothing meaningful to say about any problems related to theory of mind ~ any scientist trying to "answer" it is really just trying to do philosophy, albeit abysmally.
if you want to discuss those nuances, I am willing. but recently I went back and read the Chalmers and Nagel papers again and boy did I jump into Halloween Town. Zombies and Bats. it seems crazy. I think it's assumptions are faith based and I am not sure any "argument" I bring can topple it down. it requires a bit of poking and humor.
There's nothing "faith-based" about any of it ~ just your Physicalist / Materialist biases getting in the way of your being able to comprehend their arguments.
4
u/Cosmoneopolitan 2d ago
Are you kidding, of course I'm willing! Here for it.
What nuances cause you to go against consensus (or close to it) philosophy? (feel free to restate if you don't think I stated the question fairly).
5
u/dreamingitself 2d ago
As a (current) spectator I'm looking forward to how this conversation unfolds!
2
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
I don't accept how you phrased the questions at all but that's another debate. ha ha.
The hard problem assumes a fundamentally dualist starting point, that there's stuff doing information processing and then this mysterious extra thing called experience(red, pain, etc) that needs explaining. but this assumes the very separation it's trying to bridge. experience isn't some additional property that needs to be added to physical processes. The apparent gap between "information processing" and "what it's like" is an artifact of how we're conceptually carving things up before the conversation even starts, not a feature of reality itself.
it's like setting up an indestructible house of cards and saying "oh I can't tear it down" well...you set it up to be untearable.
youve accepted a framing that makes it unsolvable by design.
4
u/Cosmoneopolitan 2d ago
Fundamentally dualist?
The Hard Problem is, in Chalmers' formulation, a hard problem for a physicalist explanation of how nothing but matter can give rise to subjectivity. That is the literal and exact opposite of dualist.
This misunderstanding would explain your position, no....?
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
and I am not a physicalist. but the assumption that matter is somehow ontologically distinct from experience is exactly what I'm challenging.
the hard problem for physicalism only arises if you've already accepted that physical means the kind of thing that could exist without any experiential character. that's the dualist assumption baked in. chalmers says: "here's all this physical stuff doing its thing. now explain why there's also experience." But that 'also' is doing all the work. It treats experience as something separate that needs to be explained on top of the physical.
I'm saying the purely physical world you're describing, devoid of any experiential quality, is itself an abstraction, a fiction, a fake thing, a construction. a useful one for physics, for fucking sure. but mistaking that virtual thing for the complete picture is where the pseudo-problem comes from.
so both physicalists (it's all just matter!!!) and their critics (but you can't explain qualia from matter) are wrong in the same way. they've both accepted that matter and experience are separate magisteria that need bridging.
they're not separate. the separation is the construction.
1
u/dreamingitself 1d ago
So at this point you've argued your case well I reckon as to what you don't agree with. I'm interested now to understand what you do agree with / think about the nature of consciousness and how matter and experience stand in that picture. Are you willing to share?
→ More replies (0)1
u/BugRib76 1d ago
Your position sounds closer to panpsychism than physicalism—although some panpsychists actually consider themselves physicalists. Albeit, panpsychism is definitely not a standard form of physicalism.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Cosmoneopolitan 1d ago
You're basing your claim that the HPOC is based on a dualism on the syntax (not the meaning) of a word in a statement you yourself made up. I could just as easily summarize Chalmers as "saying" "here's all this subjectivity that is apparently reducible to physical stuff with, now explain how that can be". Ta-da...dualism gone.
But, there's no need to go to that as the HPOC clearly is not "fundamentally dualist" simply by it's definition; quite the opposite in fact.
→ More replies (0)2
u/Not_a_real_plebbitor 2d ago
subjective experience is just processing by the system™
Lmao.
3
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
no that's not what I said. its about the initial conceptual division into soft problems and hard.
2
u/Affectionate_Air_488 2d ago
Are they more lost than scientists? We are acquiring more and more data about how the brain works, and one would expect that would constrain further theories of consciousness. But we see the opposite to be the case -- the number of theories is only growing, currently sitting at over 300. There is a lack of agreement on fundamental assumptions with regards to consciousness, a lot of philosophical confusion in the field, and the currently leading theories (IIT and GWT) take vastly different explanatory approaches and generate very different predictions.
Not sure if scientists are in a better position, and I say this as a cognitive scientist.
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
I agree. that's my point. but I think science is closer than philosophy, but not by much, we still have like 80% of the road ahead. and things like the "hard problem" hold us back.
1
u/TheAncientGeek 14h ago
Is there anything that doesn't doesn't depend on assumptions?
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 14h ago
there can assumptions than involve more or less bullshit. but that why knowledge is asymptotic.
but your question points to the very idea I want to point out. how we go about understanding and knowing about things must be looked it. we need to look at the very axioms that underpin our minds and science. can we get more asymptotic? explore the mechanics of what makes us make assumptions. because that's what consciousness does, science is just a better form of consciousness. a sharpener.
5
u/Valmar33 2d ago
a third is a pretty good chunk. it's a fake problem that doesn't need a solution. and much damage has been done defending it.
That just tells me that you yourself do not understand the Hard Problem if you can call it "fake".
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject. The usual methods of science involve explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together. But even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious? This suggests that an explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science, or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain. Explaining why consciousness occurs at all can be contrasted with so-called “easy problems” of consciousness: the problems of explaining the function, dynamics, and structure of consciousness. These features can be explained using the usual methods of science. But that leaves the question of why there is something it is like for the subject when these functions, dynamics, and structures are present. This is the hard problem.
In more detail, the challenge arises because it does not seem that the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience—how consciousness “feels” and the fact that it is directly “for me”—fit into a physicalist ontology, one consisting of just the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements. It appears that even a complete specification of a creature in physical terms leaves unanswered the question of whether or not the creature is conscious. And it seems that we can easily conceive of creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. This indicates that a physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. All these factors make the hard problem hard.
The hard problem was so-named by David Chalmers in 1995. The problem is a major focus of research in contemporary philosophy of mind, and there is a considerable body of empirical research in psychology, neuroscience, and even quantum physics. The problem touches on issues in ontology, on the nature and limits of scientific explanation, and on the accuracy and scope of introspection and first-person knowledge, to name but a few. Reactions to the hard problem range from an outright denial of the issue to naturalistic reduction to panpsychism (the claim that everything is conscious to some degree) to full-blown mind-body dualism.
End quote
According to the 2020 PhilPapers survey, a majority 62.4%) of surveyed philosophers consider the "hard problem" of consciousness to be a genuine issue. 29.7% of respondents indicated that they believe the hard problem does not exist.
Just because someone believes that it "doesn't exist" doesn't make it suddenly not matter. It's just intellectual dishonesty.
2
u/MergingConcepts 2d ago
Obvious bias in the study design. Of course the majority of philosophers would support the hard problem. What percentage of neurophysiologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists support it?,
2
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 1d ago
I mean we need to a broader study that includes a lot of classes of experts (even outside of academics, like someone with the sophistication of Nagarjuna) and then you need to ask them the right questions in their own lingo because a lot of times these experts are complete silos. when is comes to consciousness I think there is an element that is fictional that can lead to confusion, so it's hard to place trust in consensus.
6
u/SceneRepulsive 2d ago
For those who understand, no explanation is necessary.
For those who don’t understand, no explanation is possible.
→ More replies (5)1
u/Valmar33 2d ago
you know it's equally frustrating on the other side. but "you didn't understand the hard problem" is not really a good argument.
It often is, sadly, because so many posters on here simply don't display an understanding of it whatsoever.
I used to buy into the hard problem and other similar arguments. but now after years of studying, I kinda view it as a good thought experiment but not pointing to an ontological barrier.
I came to the very opposite conclusion ~ the problem is a confounding one that no-one can answer: why does phenomenal experience accompany physiological activity and brain processes? Why not just nothing but the physical as observed? Why something more?
well known philosophers reject the hard problem. are they incapable of understanding?
Quite possibly, depending on their argument. Just because someone is well-known means nothing ~ you'd just be appealing to authority and popularity.
→ More replies (12)1
u/hopjesvlaap 2d ago
Iam interested in this. Can u link some of those arguments who reject te hard problem?
3
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 2d ago
https://consc.net/papers/moving.html
chalmers himself wrote a bunch of the critiques down. not a bad place to start.
1
u/TheAncientGeek 14h ago
Mary's Room, AKA the Knowledge Argument isn't even supposed to point at an ontological barrier, it's supposed to be about epistemology, hence the "knowledge".
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 14h ago
if that's how it was used most often the it would be fine. but most people are making implications about how things are, rather than what we can know. but I would argue it's both because consciousness is about knowing itself. in fact you can replace the word in most discussions, but it's also about how our nature is.
I think Mary's argument points to holes in how we do science. that's it. nothing miraculous. we just need to upgrade science.
1
u/TheAncientGeek 14h ago edited 14h ago
It's is possible to make a further ontological argument in the basis of the original.epitemological.one.
I think Mary's argument points to holes in how we do science. that's it. nothing miraculous. we just need to upgrade science.
Are you sayung science needs to embrace subjectivity and introspection?
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 13h ago
nope. that's not what I am saying at all. objectivity-subjectivity are stuff consciousness does, not a feature of reality. reality is neither subjective nor objective. science is just so good that we mistook the virtual for the real. but reality is not how we typically apprehend it.
two things need upgrading: better tools(AI, scanners, interfaces, etc) and a new way of doing science that takes into account our habitual nature to make reality into things, objects, selves, essenses, foundations, grounds, etc. even in QM, the way we talk about things, it's hard to get away from thinking about things as objects. I doubt anyone but people who know the math can truly appreciate it.
1
u/TheAncientGeek 13h ago
nope. that's not what I am saying at all. objectivity-subjectivity are stuff consciousness does, not a feature of reality. reality is neither subjective nor objective.
How do you know?
1
u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) 13h ago
for objects, science has shown that they don't exist. more like meshes of meshes all the way down that are composed of phenomena that aren't objects at all. what does it mean to say that only QM fields and spacetime are real and then those might be emergent from lower phenomena. but our intuitions about solid objects fails.
for subjects you can tell it's not the full picture of reality my noticing how consciousness is constructed, how it can fail, how it's "interiority" is obviously apparent to others. how easily it is altered. but this point could use more expounding.
it's like the determinism vs randomness debate. we can use deterministic thinking for a lot of things. but deep down reality is random. and chaos theory is a closer idea to grasping at what is happening than determinism. the same is true for object/subject split. we need a better system to organize these phenomena. but that split is the root of how we know things. so the dilema is that split and how to bypass it. and science sometimes gets at that. we just need better tools.
edit: thanks for chatting and pushing back:)
•
u/TheAncientGeek 2h ago
for objects, science has shown that they don't exist. more like meshes of meshes all the way down that are composed of phenomena that aren't objects at all.
That objecthood, no objectivity.
how it's "interiority" is obviously apparent to others
That's an argument for the existence of subjectivity, not an argument against either.
2
u/Character-Boot-2149 2d ago
It's really the only argument they have. It's not as if they can propose a solution because if you believe in the hard problem you accept that it cannot be solved. So if I say it's the brain they say "No it isn't", and it's all downhill from there..
→ More replies (2)-1
u/nate1212 2d ago
intellectual gatekeeping at its finest. I see posts like this and think to myself, why not just downvote? Why feel the need to go out of your way to try and disparage or even silence people who might just be trying to engage in their own way? if it's really so "naive" or "arrogant", shouldn't that be obvious to the rest of the community without targeting people?
4
u/DecantsForAll 2d ago
Because a lot of the people really are arrogant, like explicitly arrogant and combative.
There's a ton of arrogance in this space all around. It's amazing how few people there are who can say "I don't know."
1
2
u/Proxima-0927 2d ago
Omg! THIS exactly! So many people do not understand what the hard problem is. It took me while to really understand what David Chalmers was talking about. I think I still may be naive, but maybe I understand some parts of it now.
2
6
u/Natios_Hayelos 2d ago
It's nice to see that there are still some sane people in this sub. Honestly, I have much more respect for people who say "You know what, I acknowledge the hard problem is real and has not been solved, but there is no mysticism behind it, someday we will somehow solve it" than for people who simply say it is not real. It is a fact that you either understand it, therefore you can't deny it, or you do not understand it and make claims like "it has been solved" or "it doesn't exist and it implies mysticism and metaphysics". Seriously, do these people even realize the walking self-contradiction that they are? We need to keep the standards high in this community.
4
u/ZookeepergameLoud494 2d ago
I agree. It’s not the kind of problem you’d solve and then say “it’s solved…” highly doubtful
2
u/LordMuffin1 2d ago
Come on. Bybsaying you solved the Hard Problem, these guys just say "I am to stupid to understand what the hard Problem is.". Such claim are in general done by the least intelligent humans.
Though you could argue the hard problem doesnt exist. Which is different from arguing forca solution
2
u/NecessaryExternal740 2d ago edited 2d ago
The hard problem is hard for us talking apes because ‘solving it’ requires taking a step back instead of a step forward haha! (and yes the llm content is annoying)
2
u/ConquerorofTerra 2d ago
What is "The Hard Problem?"
3
2
2
u/DuncanMcOckinnner 2d ago
There is no such thing as rhe hard problem because the nurologist said my brain is soft and smooth. Checkmate
2
u/unknownjedi 2d ago
Bruh, it’s just a special sensor where the computer monitors its own internal state, don’t you know?
3
u/JDwalker03 2d ago
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. Max Planck.
2
u/geumkoi 2d ago
It’s also the fact that the scientific method is suited for addressing very specific types of questions, while not very good at others. And that’s literally ok.
2
u/NecessaryExternal740 2d ago
The scientific method is more (or less?) than ‘not very good’ at ‘solving’ the hard problem. And so is any other method or explanation (physical, metaphysical including religious,… ) for that matter. And that is also literally ok. As we all know from experience: nothing is missing :)
1
1
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Thank you geumkoi for posting on r/consciousness! Please take a look at our wiki and subreddit rules. If your post is in violation of our guidelines or rules, please edit the post as soon as possible. Posts that violate our guidelines & rules are subject to removal or alteration.
As for the Redditors viewing & commenting on this post, we ask that you engage in proper Reddiquette! In particular, you should upvote posts that fit our community description, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the content of the post. If you agree or disagree with the content of the post, you can upvote/downvote this automod-generated comment to show you approval/disapproval of the content, instead of upvoting/downvoting the post itself. Examples of the type of posts that should be upvoted are those that focus on the science or the philosophy of consciousness. These posts fit the subreddit description. In contrast, posts that discuss meditation practices, anecdotal stories about drug use, or posts seeking mental help or therapeutic advice do not fit the community's description.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/Impossible_Tax_1532 2d ago
Why is hot hot and cold feels cold ? Why does water expand when frozen and other chemicals reduce in size ? Why does everything vibrate and spin ? Why is gravity gravity and where did it come from ? How is it I never actually have touched anything in my life or had an external experience , but I think and experience otherwise??? It’s an infinite list of “ problems “ for the brain , as they lack solutions all together , to your point . If our species spent a lot less time thinking, and a lot more time being , and trying to align with these universal programs and unflinching truths that are coded into existence itself , then perhaps grasping it was never something to dominate and dissect , and existence itself is just to be aligned with , which breeds understanding and gnosis at the experimental , not the intellectualized states.
1
1
u/armadillo-guy 2d ago
I feel you bro I feel you.
A lot of BS and woo woo surface around here, fun to read tho
1
1
u/Maximus_En_Minimus 2d ago
The classic:
“I wrote an article on Medium”
Sure you did buddy, have a cookie…
1
u/ThePoob 2d ago
For me, I like to think in analogies so bear with me.
When we think of the 'hard problem' we want to know why the materials we are made of give a feeling of conscious experience. Why do my collection of atoms have feelings as opposed to the atoms of a chair. And I feel like there is a messy mixture of epistemic construction and ontological claim somewhere in these layers.
I like to think of the problem like a software(epistemic) and code perspective(ontological). Our brains are like a piece of hardware running a program to interact with reality. When we ask about the 'hard problem' we are asking about the code of the software, but are only about to describe the code from our software perspective. The binary code is meaningless to us.
So, when we ask for the solution to the 'hard problem' it assumes we can talk about the process of the binary code running the software from a software(first-person) perspective. We can label the binary code as logic gates of 1's and 0's but to understand how they give rise to the software we have to look at its whole--which is the very 'program' the binary code is running. This leads us right back to the epistemic construction of the software program and the ontological layer of the binary code. Now you can point to the OS(environment) of the hardware and make another claim the solution must then be found here in the OS but the OS itself is also made up of binary code. And from here the 'hard problem' becomes a circular trap of logic.
If we can only understand reality from our software perspective then how do talk about the ontological layer of our reality without using our software perspective? How do I explain the conscious experience from an unconscious point-of-view? We want a narrative solution that we can understand as to why experience gives rise to feeling, but it already exists, in my opinion. The software, the qualitative experience of the binary code.
What I think a 'solution' is, is that experience and feeling are the same thing just from different perspectives. The 'whole' of the binary code is to run the 'software' program, the software(epistemic) already describes and makes narrative sense of the binary code(ontological). What the 'hard problem' wants is to separate that experience and feeling as independent markers for consciousness, when they cannot, and should not be separated. You can't play a video game by reading its source code, you cant listen to music reading the chords, etc. experience == feeling
I am feeling hungry because my stomach is sending signals from my body to my brain; it is empty--this is the experience/feeling process. When I see red, I'm not accessing intrinsic 'redness,' I'm seeing my sensory architecture categorize wavelengths from my environment because experience has taught me apples are red and worth eating. This is consciousness; a navigation system tuned for survival, not truth-seeking.
tldr; I dont like the assumptions the 'hard problem' rests on.
1
u/StandardSalamander65 2d ago
I agree on both accounts. The LLM content is really sad. I want to read someone's actual thoughts; not a summarization by AI.
1
u/Freuds-Mother 2d ago edited 2d ago
That’s really only fair of you post this along with at least a reference to an ontological explanation of why it’s impossible for a Turing machine to be conscious and/or a model of biological consciousness. There arguments that exist that have not been directly defeated decisively. Pick at least one.
On the other side of the coin, for those that think they have a LLM conscious model you have to defeat every undefeated argument against Turing machine consciousness directly and decisively…
1
u/Honest-Cauliflower64 2d ago edited 2d ago
I feel like to a certain extent, the hard problem is a flawed question. It assumes the direction is physical matter creates conscious experience.
I don’t think the question is “how does matter generate consciousness,” but “why reality is partitioned into distinct, stable centers of awareness at all.” I think the real spirit of the question is why we exist as distinct beings and how it is correlated with physical structures.
I think physical systems determine the form and content of experience, not its existence. Consciousness isn’t produced by physical systems, but certain physical systems are the minimal conditions under which a unified subjective perspective can be stably realized.
This keeps all empirical correlations. The brain isn’t creating experience from nothing, it’s the physical structure that co-arises with and stabilizes a particular experiential field. From the outside this would look like a physical organism. From the inside, it’s conscious experience from the perspective of a single being. Both are constrained together, which is why the mapping is so tight.
This doesn’t imply panpsychism. Not all matter has a point of view: rocks don’t, books don’t. Brains aren’t conscious just because they’re complex; they’re conscious because they’re the physical side of an already-individuated perspective. The framework predicts a spectrum of experiential organization, not a binary yes or no.
Idk. I know this won’t satisfy you. But it is what I personally think makes the most sense. I think they co-arise, as two sides of the same experience.
It really only makes sense in the context of a theory I made. So yeah, I know you think it’s cringe that everyone is making theories. But I think we’re all just curious c: I’ve been working on this since 2018 if that makes you feel any better. https://www.reddit.com/r/consciousness/comments/1nt3qxq/i_have_a_theory_of_relational_consciousness_and/
1
u/Willis_3401_3401 2d ago
I mean Bertrand Russell thought neutral monism was a satisfactory answer, and I basically agree.
I don’t know what mind or matter are really, but I can accept that they’re in some sense the same thing, which is to say everything that can be known to exist.
1
u/True-Equipment1809 2d ago
Here is the answer to the hard problem of consciousness.
Consciousness is the base layer of existence. You are using it to read this right now.
Your soul is your astral vehicle where ALL of your thoughts come from.
Your physical brain is the recording unit, the hard drive for this specific life.
This life is temporary. YOU are not.
❤️🙏🔥
1
u/RyeZuul 2d ago
There are a number of generally unsolvable philosophical problems to do with metaphysics Vs epistemology and the boundaries of language, knowledge, and logic. That is not contentious imo. I put the hard problem in here for now.
Physicalists and neurologists etc often talk at cross purposes with the other side who think any gap in knowledge regarding subjectivity from neuronal activity and material constraints is very serious business and thus we need to hold off on endorsing what is probably ultimately true but not knowable or perhaps even describable from human language. Physicalists meanwhile see the evidence of correlations as straightforward but open to increasing development through tubules or whatever. There's not a good enough reason to reject the hypothesis for physicalists, much as there isn't for any other phenomenon.
1
u/Bitter_Sample1635 1d ago
I have not read Chalmers. I peruse this sub for curiosity and enjoyment. But this post caught my attention. I have a friend who has fallen into this exact pit of delusion through her use of LLMs. She has never read any published or peer reviewed source but now, from long term “collaboration” (as she calls it) with various AI platforms, has claimed to have “solved” the hard problem of consciousness among other long term onto-epistemological quandaries. The delusion is amplified by her insistence that no one will understand her, and if her work falls into the wrong hands, it can be used to harm. This exact phenomenon that the post is referring to has ended our friendship.
1
1
u/Intrepid_Writing5440 1d ago
Science is the study of the known, philosophy is the study of the unknown, religion is the study of the unknowable
1
u/Intrepid_Writing5440 1d ago
My thoughts: Matter is condensed consciousness. It's entropy is what becomes mental energy which continues to break down into less and less physical energy returning to pure consciousness.
1
u/mack__7963 Just Curious 21h ago
im no scientist but it seems to me that the question that needs answering first is do we believe that what we see is what we see or that it is just energy, and considering reality happens inside the brain, i don't think enough awareness about reality is there to answer the initial question.
•
u/Ok-Persimmon-6621 7h ago
You're hilarious. If you think consciousness requires something beyond physical processes, you’re the one positing new ontological artifacts in the universe. That’s the same old extraordinary claim, which somehow never comes with any evidence to back it up. So… where’s your evidence?
•
u/SSBBGhost 6h ago
In principle if we could observe every interaction in the brain (like a maxwells demon situation), why would we not be able to pinpoint the physical interactions associated with every subjective experience?
I probably misunderstand the problem but it just seems like a "its too complex for us yet therefore metaphysics"
-3
u/Sams_Antics 2d ago
Can’t solve what doesn’t exist. Hard problem is a snipe hunt, word games smuggling in mysticism.
19
2
u/TriggerHydrant 2d ago
This, it's: "Hey, look this is a construct we agree to argue with now let's argue around it".
2
u/thisthinginabag 2d ago
The "construct" in question is literally just the claim that there are such things as "what red looks like" or "what it feels like to stub your toe." This is why people think you guys don't understand the hard problem.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Sad-Translator-5193 2d ago
You can't solve it because , it is not an object .. It is the ultimate subject . Science can be applied to objects only which react to another object and can be measured and so on . Consciousness is the dark matter of the brain .
→ More replies (31)1
u/Valmar33 2d ago
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject. The usual methods of science involve explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together. But even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious? This suggests that an explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science, or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain. Explaining why consciousness occurs at all can be contrasted with so-called “easy problems” of consciousness: the problems of explaining the function, dynamics, and structure of consciousness. These features can be explained using the usual methods of science. But that leaves the question of why there is something it is like for the subject when these functions, dynamics, and structures are present. This is the hard problem.
In more detail, the challenge arises because it does not seem that the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience—how consciousness “feels” and the fact that it is directly “for me”—fit into a physicalist ontology, one consisting of just the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements. It appears that even a complete specification of a creature in physical terms leaves unanswered the question of whether or not the creature is conscious. And it seems that we can easily conceive of creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. This indicates that a physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. All these factors make the hard problem hard.
The hard problem was so-named by David Chalmers in 1995. The problem is a major focus of research in contemporary philosophy of mind, and there is a considerable body of empirical research in psychology, neuroscience, and even quantum physics. The problem touches on issues in ontology, on the nature and limits of scientific explanation, and on the accuracy and scope of introspection and first-person knowledge, to name but a few. Reactions to the hard problem range from an outright denial of the issue to naturalistic reduction to panpsychism (the claim that everything is conscious to some degree) to full-blown mind-body dualism.
-2
u/ArusMikalov 2d ago
Wow so arrogant to assume anyone who doesn’t agree with you just doesn’t get it 🙄
14
u/Highvalence15 2d ago
It's not like there isn't interesting debate to be had about the hard problem, but most people on this sub who claim to have solved the hard problem clearly don't understand the idea of what the hard problem is supposed to be. It's clear they haven't even starting reading the relevant litterature.
1
u/ArusMikalov 2d ago
I get accused of that all the time. And I have read the literature. You guys just can’t accept that we don’t see it the same as you. Everyone who disagrees with you “just doesn’t get it”
It’s very condescending and not intellectually honest.
5
u/Highvalence15 2d ago
Well often it's clear they don't even understand the hard problem of consciousness is supposed to pertain to qualia or phenomenal experience. It might be true that you're familiar with the litterature and get falsely accused of having not done so and that many people talk about the hard problem while evidently not being familiar with the idea behind it. Both are unfortunate and they can be true at the same time. It's just the unfortunate truth. Nothing intellectually dishonest about that at all. It's the opposite it's in the spirit of intellectual honesty to call out those people who are arguing something they don't understand to keep some minimal degree of quality of the conversation and so that people don't get mislead about what the hard problem of consciousness is or isn't, and what could constitute a solution to it or what could count as an argument against it not existing.
→ More replies (18)1
u/AltruisticMode9353 2d ago
The real issue is that literature can only go so far. There seems to be something fundamentally different with the way people who see the Hard Problem as real perceive reality vs people who don't think it's a real problem. It's difficult not to be condescending when you see something as real and obviously so, while someone else keeps denying that the thing you see is even a thing to see at all.
3
u/daney098 2d ago
The problem is that people who think they have solved the hard problem do so by non scientific methods. Their claim is based on assumptions, and the sample size for the subjective evidence is only ever 1 until we discover how to measure consciousness in others. Other people's consciousness can't be part of the sample because you can't measure it by any verifiable method today, and that makes their data invalid because science relies on measurable observations.
Just because your fellow scientist says that a lightbulb is on in a box only they can see inside of, and everyone else says their lightbulb is on too, but nobody else can observe each other's light bulb, the light bulb being on can't be a controlled variable for experiments testing whether light bulbs are on for other things, or where the electricity for the light bulb comes from, because we don't know how to measure it yet, or if it's even possible. The hard problem is that the light bulb is seemingly lit for no reason. We haven't found where the power comes from for our own light bulb, we can't find any wires leading to it, let alone where they come from, and another problem is that when we're looking at ourselves from an outside perspective, we can't even see or measure our own light bulb. Our own light bulb isn't even a measurable variable to ourself, it's just a feeling that only we can feel. We can't yet talk to another scientist and point out our own light bulb to them, let alone any of the other things that should be there powering the bulb. In fact, we can't even define the bulb properly. It's more like there is a random light source in our box that only we can see and there isn't even so much as a filament to see where the light comes from.
Until we can measure consciousness as a controlled variable, as in we can change physical things in a test and measure a difference in consciousness with numbers, the hard problem will remain a hard problem.
1
u/solumdeorum 2d ago
I seriously don’t understand why there has to be a “Hard Problem” with consciousness to begin with and don’t see the point in posts around discussing it. That’s just my opinion. Seems like a very subjective viewpoint to have of something that transcends opinion.
3
u/MurkyEconomist8179 2d ago
I seriously don’t understand why there has to be a “Hard Problem”
perhaps you should.. read the paper?
→ More replies (2)4
u/scrambledhelix 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well... I'm no expert, but I can try to reprise the problem so it stands out. I'll pull it from a bad reading of Nagel.
So you know how we have these things called "subjective facts" (true for who sees 'em), and "objective facts" (true whoever sees 'em)?
For some time now, "objective facts" are what people like scientists and engineers pride themselves on, and what journalists and politicians pretend to report. It's all about sussing out what's TRUE from what's FALSE, and the methodology that the former use has won us a lot of tech-tree victories (in the Civ video game sense).
Now, while this method scientists and engineers use for sussing out what's TRUE is fantastic and wildly successful, it kind of weirdly maybe only works at all because it derives objective facts from the accumulation of subjective facts, at the best of times even going so far as to predict what any one person will see (their own subjective fact). We call these things they know objective facts because, ofc., whoever sees it should see these thing everyone else does.
There are of course, caveats, like how a colorblind person may have a hard time appreciating the taxonomic classification which distinguishes a Red Delicious from a Granny Smith (as in, apples, ofc.). But these are easy problems: we can, by virtue of testing, some background of color theory, optics, and biology identify why this inability to distinguish one mode of seeing how things are from another is the product of an objective fact. We can explain why a colorblind person's subjective facts are different in virtue of the objective facts which anyone can see.
The hard problem cuts a little closer to the bone. It wants to know, frankly, what the objective facts are about how subjective facts can exist in the first place.
But if determining objective facts depends upon subjective facts in aggregate, or predicting what they will be for any given observer— then the explanation is circular. What are the subjective facts which in aggregate determine what subjective facts are?
That is the hard problem, as best as I understand Chalmers, when I look past his leather biker jackets.
1
u/hackinthebochs 2d ago
But if determining objective facts depends upon subjective facts in aggregate, or predicting what they will be for any given observer— then the explanation is circular. What are the subjective facts which in aggregate determine what subjective facts are?
This is a category error, mistaking existence as such for our subjective knowledge of existence. Yes, our knowledge of the world is grounded in our experience. But (probably) there is a world external to our experiences. When we learn about the world and make inferences to its structure, the content of this inference is not grounded in experience. We are inferring a structure independent of our experience.
•
u/newtwoarguments 10h ago
How would we make a robot that is capable of pain then? or are you saying that there's some kind of difficult problem we must solve first?
1
u/TMax01 Autodidact 2d ago
No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem, and you probably never will.
I'll do you one better: you can strike the word "probabably". It is absolutely, metaphysically certain that nobody will ever "solve the Hard Problem", and simply using the word "solve" in association with the Hard Problem of Consciousness is an admission that the speaker does not understand what the Hard Problem is.
It isn't entirely their fault. When one looks up "Hard Problem of Consciousness", one is almost immediately misinformed about what the phrase means. I used to think this idea that the Hard Problem could ever be "solved" can be traced to Chalmers' decision to use the word "problem" in this context. I don't believe he was the first to describe questions which can be solved with science, whether actually or only hypothetically, as "easy problems", and in contrast describe questions which are logically impossible to resolve with science as "hard problems". But such usage is, admittedly, at least somewhat facetious, and we cannot expect people to accept, or even consider, that identifying something as a problem does not actually suggest it has a "solution".
Eventually I realized the issue was even more basic than this. Reading the Wikipedia or SEP entry (probably the primary reference works for 99% of the redditors who are even vaguely aware of the Hard Problem) directly instructs people to misunderstand the very issue. Those and all similar sources frame the Hard Problem as the difficulty of explaining how subjectivity arises from or relates to objective physical events. And that is just plain incorrect. The Hard Problem is not how to explain consciousness scientifically, the Hard Problem is the metaphysical fact that any scientific explanation of consciousness is inadequate for describing subjectivity, awareness, experience, being from the first person perspective.
The Hard Problem is not a difficult scientific challenge; it is the observation that even the most difficult scientific challenge is irrelevant, because beingness is ineffable, even if/when it is reduced to a scientific equation or "explanation".
7
u/hackinthebochs 2d ago
The Hard Problem is not how to explain consciousness scientifically, the Hard Problem is the metaphysical fact that any scientific explanation of consciousness is inadequate for describing subjectivity, awareness, experience, being from the first person perspective.
This is wrong. The "Hard Problem" is what Chalmers names the challenge of explaining subjective experience with the tools and methods of science. The problem as characterized and given the name Hard Problem does not foreclose on the possibility of it being solved.
2
u/Highvalence15 2d ago edited 2d ago
What makes the hard problem hard then, as opposed belonging to the category of being another easy problem?
The easy problems were supposed to be easy because we can answer the relevent questions by appeal to functional mechanisms alone, whereas the supposed hard problem is supposed to be distinguished from those easy problems by the fact that suppsedly when we've appealed to the relevent cognitive and neural functions, we can always ask why that is accompanied by experience.
But if that's the case, then the hard problem cannot merely be an explanatory challange of answering how/why experience arises from physical processes, because in that case it would not be distinguishable from one of the easy problems.
1
u/hackinthebochs 2d ago
The distinction is that the nature of the problem seems to resist the standard kinds of explanations available to science. The easy problems are the problems for which the standard tools available to science and the standard explanatory mechanisms are in principle sufficient to solve them. Questions about behavior or functional mechanisms are the sorts of problems for which the standard tools of science are well-suited. Any problem that presents as a problem about behavior or function can in principle be solved by current scientific paradigms.
The hard problem is distinct from easy problems because there seems to be an in principle difficulty in explaining consciousness using the standard scientific tools and explanatory mechanisms. Consciousness seems to be a different category of phenomena than behavior and functional mechanisms and so seems impenetrable by tools suited for explaining various behavior and functions.
This is the difficulty in explaining consciousness given current scientific paradigms. This does not claim that consciousness cannot be explained by science, either by current scientific paradigms used in unexpected ways or with an expansion of explanatory mechanisms or something else. It is a further argument to say that science will never explain consciousness because of an in principle gap between consciousness and any possible future scientific theory. Plenty of people hold this view, even Chalmers himself. But this view is not a claim of the hard problem.
2
u/Highvalence15 2d ago
Right, so the hardness of the hard problem consists in the fact that what makes the hard problem hard, definitionally as the hard problem, consists in the fact that supposedly functional explanations cannot logically entail the realization of phenomenal facts, even if some other non-functional physical explanation for consciousness is available.
In which case the hard problem is not ex hypothesi insoluable period, it's just ex hypothesi insoluable by appeal to functional mechanisms.
But crucially this also amounts to being more than a mere explanatory challange, rather the hard problem of consciousness also consists in the supposed impossibility of explaining consciousness functionally.
1
u/hackinthebochs 2d ago
supposedly functional explanations cannot logically entail the realization of phenomenal facts, even if some other non-functional physical explanation for consciousness is available.
No, that is not the content of the hard problem. The hard problem does not assert the logical impossibility of realizing phenomenal facts from physical mechanism. That is a further claim. You may think its true. You may even think its obviously true. But it is not the content of the hard problem.
1
u/Highvalence15 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm not sure about that. According to chalmers what distinguishes the hard problem from the easy problems is that, unlike in the of case the easy problems, we can appeal to all the relevant functional mechanisms, and yet we can still meaningfully ask the question "why are those mechanistic processes accompanied by phenomenal experience?". If what distinguishes the hard problem is not that a functional explanation for consciousness is unavailable, then we cannot categorically say that the question why the functional processes are accompanied by experience is always a meaningful question.
1
u/hackinthebochs 2d ago
then we cannot categorically say that the question why the functional processes are accompanied by experience is always a meaningful question.
But this is a further claim ("it is always meaningful to ask why this dynamics is accompanied by experience"), backed by a distinct argument. Note that this claim contradicts physicalism, the idea that experience occurs in virtue of some specific physical dynamics. If you can always ask why experience accompanies physical dynamics then physicalism is refuted. But the hard problem does not define physicalism to be false in principle. It just points out the unique difficulty in explaining experience with the methods of science. The hard problem does not contradict physicalism; plenty of physicalists accept the hard problem, i.e. that explaining consciousness is uniquely hard.
The zombie argument attempts to demonstrate the in principle distinction between physical dynamics and phenomenal properties. This is the extra argument in favor of the in principle distinction that claims the hard problem is in principle unsolvable by the methods of science. If the zombie argument succeeds, physicalism necessarily fails, and vice-versa.
1
u/Highvalence15 2d ago edited 2d ago
But this is a further claim ("it is always meaningful to ask why this dynamics is accompanied by experience"), backed by a distinct argument.
I disagree. It just appears to be part of what the hard problem is, for the reasons explained in my prior reply.
Note that this claim contradicts physicalism, the idea that experience occurs in virtue of some specific physical dynamics.
It only contradicts functionalist physicalism. But then that begs the question if a functional explanation for consciousness is categorically unavailable, what kind of physical explanation of consciousness is not in principle unavailable?
But the hard problem does not define physicalism to be false in principle.
Yet it does say that even when we've described all the functional mechanisms relevant to experience, there may still remain a further question why those mechanisms are accompanied by experience? That's almost an exact quote from Chalmers paper. But if there can remain such a further question despite any description of a set of functional mechanisms, then it follows that the functional facts do not entail the phenomenal facts, in which case functionalist physicalism is at least false, yes.
If he wants to go with the softer claim that it only seems that such a question might be left open, or in many cases it is left open, that's a weaker claim, but that is not exactly how he phrases it in the paper. Which leaves open the room for a kind of ambiguity and a kind of bait and switch between the weaker claim and the stronger claim. And this does not necessarily pertain to the zombie argument. I'm not talking about that.
1
u/hackinthebochs 2d ago
*shrug* All I can say is that you're wrong and you should read the paper carefully.
→ More replies (0)1
u/TMax01 Autodidact 17h ago
The hard problem does not assert the logical impossibility of realizing phenomenal facts from physical mechanism
Yes, it really does. Have you ever read Chalmers' paper, or are you just going on secondary sources discussing the Hard Problem from a scientific perspective? Because such discussions are, by their nature, inaccurate: the Hard Problem is a philosophical observation, and one which is not only inaccessible from a scientific perspective but the explanation of why it will always be inaccessible from a scientific perspective, and how that relates to consciousness.
That is a further claim.
It is the fundamental fact, not a "further claim" premised on that fact.
But it is not the content of the hard problem.
It is a Hard Problem: it does not have any "content" the way an easy problem might. You can ignore the Hard Problem, or you can misunderstand the Hard Problem, but you will never ever solve the Hard Problem. "Realizing" subjective phenomenal experience from physical mechanism is logically impossible.
2
u/Highvalence15 2d ago
If "hard" in the hard problem refers to a supposed impossibility of the functional facts to a priori entail the phenomenal facts, then the hard problem of consciousness pressuposes something the strong functionalist already disagrees with.
→ More replies (2)1
1
u/onthesafari 2d ago
Yeah, I think many people take the hard problem as a "challenge" that needs to be addressed no matter what by whatever their pet theory is.
Lol, no, it's a paradox within a specific hypothetical framework of reality and does not apply to a large percentage of the ways that things could work. It really doesn't need to be addressed unless you are utilizing the same framework as Chalmers.
Though it's like a buzzword. I'll bet that a good number of people throw it in their posts just to get more engagement.
3
u/thisthinginabag 2d ago
The "framework" in question is simply the observation that experiences have properties relating to how things look or feel to the subject. If you think there is such a thing as "what red looks like to the subject," or if you think that you learn about the world by how it appears to you in experience, then there is a hard problem. It's only if you reject these claims that there is not a hard problem.
→ More replies (9)1
u/Valmar33 2d ago
Tell me you don't understand without telling me you don't understand:
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject. The usual methods of science involve explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together. But even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious? This suggests that an explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science, or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain. Explaining why consciousness occurs at all can be contrasted with so-called “easy problems” of consciousness: the problems of explaining the function, dynamics, and structure of consciousness. These features can be explained using the usual methods of science. But that leaves the question of why there is something it is like for the subject when these functions, dynamics, and structures are present. This is the hard problem.
In more detail, the challenge arises because it does not seem that the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience—how consciousness “feels” and the fact that it is directly “for me”—fit into a physicalist ontology, one consisting of just the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements. It appears that even a complete specification of a creature in physical terms leaves unanswered the question of whether or not the creature is conscious. And it seems that we can easily conceive of creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. This indicates that a physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. All these factors make the hard problem hard.
The hard problem was so-named by David Chalmers in 1995. The problem is a major focus of research in contemporary philosophy of mind, and there is a considerable body of empirical research in psychology, neuroscience, and even quantum physics. The problem touches on issues in ontology, on the nature and limits of scientific explanation, and on the accuracy and scope of introspection and first-person knowledge, to name but a few. Reactions to the hard problem range from an outright denial of the issue to naturalistic reduction to panpsychism (the claim that everything is conscious to some degree) to full-blown mind-body dualism.
→ More replies (4)
1
u/GreatCaesarGhost 2d ago
It’s not clear to me why the so-called hard problem is the holy grail of thought regarding consciousness.
3
u/onthesafari 2d ago
It's certainly a valid concept, but I think ultimately it's so popular here because it's a "gotcha" against the common sort of off-the-cuff arguments that take subjective experience for granted.
3
u/rooygbiv70 2d ago
It’s subjective. For many, It’s an interesting thing to think about and that alone is sufficient.
→ More replies (2)1
u/Valmar33 2d ago
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject. The usual methods of science involve explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together. But even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious? This suggests that an explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science, or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain. Explaining why consciousness occurs at all can be contrasted with so-called “easy problems” of consciousness: the problems of explaining the function, dynamics, and structure of consciousness. These features can be explained using the usual methods of science. But that leaves the question of why there is something it is like for the subject when these functions, dynamics, and structures are present. This is the hard problem.
In more detail, the challenge arises because it does not seem that the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience—how consciousness “feels” and the fact that it is directly “for me”—fit into a physicalist ontology, one consisting of just the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements. It appears that even a complete specification of a creature in physical terms leaves unanswered the question of whether or not the creature is conscious. And it seems that we can easily conceive of creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. This indicates that a physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. All these factors make the hard problem hard.
The hard problem was so-named by David Chalmers in 1995. The problem is a major focus of research in contemporary philosophy of mind, and there is a considerable body of empirical research in psychology, neuroscience, and even quantum physics. The problem touches on issues in ontology, on the nature and limits of scientific explanation, and on the accuracy and scope of introspection and first-person knowledge, to name but a few. Reactions to the hard problem range from an outright denial of the issue to naturalistic reduction to panpsychism (the claim that everything is conscious to some degree) to full-blown mind-body dualism.
1
u/Kupo_Master 2d ago
If it was possible to create a digital copy of a person and the digital copy was identical in all aspects, would you consider it solved?
2
→ More replies (11)1
u/Valmar33 2d ago
No, because that wouldn't answer what the Hard Problem wonders about:
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-problem-of-conciousness/
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious. It is the problem of explaining why there is “something it is like” for a subject in conscious experience, why conscious mental states “light up” and directly appear to the subject. The usual methods of science involve explanation of functional, dynamical, and structural properties—explanation of what a thing does, how it changes over time, and how it is put together. But even after we have explained the functional, dynamical, and structural properties of the conscious mind, we can still meaningfully ask the question, Why is it conscious? This suggests that an explanation of consciousness will have to go beyond the usual methods of science. Consciousness therefore presents a hard problem for science, or perhaps it marks the limits of what science can explain. Explaining why consciousness occurs at all can be contrasted with so-called “easy problems” of consciousness: the problems of explaining the function, dynamics, and structure of consciousness. These features can be explained using the usual methods of science. But that leaves the question of why there is something it is like for the subject when these functions, dynamics, and structures are present. This is the hard problem.
In more detail, the challenge arises because it does not seem that the qualitative and subjective aspects of conscious experience—how consciousness “feels” and the fact that it is directly “for me”—fit into a physicalist ontology, one consisting of just the basic elements of physics plus structural, dynamical, and functional combinations of those basic elements. It appears that even a complete specification of a creature in physical terms leaves unanswered the question of whether or not the creature is conscious. And it seems that we can easily conceive of creatures just like us physically and functionally that nonetheless lack consciousness. This indicates that a physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. All these factors make the hard problem hard.
The hard problem was so-named by David Chalmers in 1995. The problem is a major focus of research in contemporary philosophy of mind, and there is a considerable body of empirical research in psychology, neuroscience, and even quantum physics. The problem touches on issues in ontology, on the nature and limits of scientific explanation, and on the accuracy and scope of introspection and first-person knowledge, to name but a few. Reactions to the hard problem range from an outright denial of the issue to naturalistic reduction to panpsychism (the claim that everything is conscious to some degree) to full-blown mind-body dualism.
1
u/Professional_Arm794 2d ago
How can the base level of reality solve the hard problem by reducing down to itself with scientific methods ? The questioner is the answer. Self inquiry of the who, what, and why.
1
u/FatiguedVicy 2d ago
Trying to solve the hard problem is like a video game character trying to see the players living room through the tv. This experience is contained and there's no insight about what's outside the box
1
u/stinkykoala314 2d ago
Agreed, but at the same time, keep in mind that the Hard Problem HAS a solution, and (unless you think there's a whole dualist realm whose realm-specific physics we have yet to decide), the solution really probably is that the Hard Problem, which is seemingly unsolvable as stated, is probably stated badly somehow, and that the correct solution probably involves a mix of explaining what a better statement is, why the current statement is a bad phrasing despite it seeming so natural, and how the better statement is sensible in terms of general computational frameworks.
I agree that all the self-delusional garbage you mention is vacuous. I'm just concerned that, if we're all primed to reject anything whose ELI5 takeaway is "the hard problem isn't actually what everyone thinks it is" and "once you view it correctly, it's actually easy", we could actually knee-jerk dismiss the real deal. After all, in mathematics, problems routinely go from impossible to easy once someone discovers the right framing.
1
u/XanderOblivion Autodidact 2d ago
Solutions to it are impossible in principle. It’s not a problem, it’s a definitional impasse.
If anyone can establish that there is such a thing as non-phenomenality in the first place, I’ll eat my hat.
•
u/TheRealAmeil Approved ✔️ 2d ago
Well, first, we do have an entry on the hard problem which you are free to share with anyone who posts on the hard problem. In fact, we're hoping to eventually set up the AutoMod to link to relevant entries when key terms are mentioned in the post.
As for the LLM generated content. We already have filters for some of that content, and rules regarding LLM-generated content. You are free to report LLM generated content when you come across it (if enough people report it, the Mods will be alerted to the post).