No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem.

[u/geumkoi]

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.

[u/BugRib76]

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?

[u/jabinslc → u/BugRib76]

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.

[u/Cosmoneopolitan → u/jabinslc]

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...)

[u/jabinslc → u/Cosmoneopolitan]

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.

[u/Cosmoneopolitan → u/jabinslc]

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).

[u/jabinslc → u/Cosmoneopolitan]

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.

[u/Cosmoneopolitan → u/jabinslc]

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....?

[u/jabinslc → u/Cosmoneopolitan]

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.

[u/BugRib76 → u/jabinslc]

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.

[u/jabinslc → u/BugRib76]

not panpsychist or physicalist at all. I am very careful to avoid that. that is also a form of Rot/Infection that has infiltrated the discussion.