Talk:Hard problem of consciousness/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Pardon my naivety but...

... how is this concept of 'Hard problem of consciousness' different to 'Mind-body problem'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pooipedia (talk • contribs) 14:03, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Chalmers defines the hard problem of consciousness is one more specific problem under the broader umbrella of the mind-body problem, which also includes for example the problem of mental causation, whether AI can be conscious, etc. Gazelle55 (talk) 00:52, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Transposed section of talk with User:J-Wiki about neutral PoV way to state the "Hard Problem"

Your edits have been thoughtful, so I don't want to dwell on quibbles. Tom Nagel's remark is correct: No one knows how a physical state can 'be' a mental (i.e., felt) state. That is in fact yet another way to state the "hard problem" itself!

But to say instead "No one knows how a physical state can be or yield a mental state" is not just to state the problem, but to take a position on it, namely, the hypothesis of interactionist dualism (or something along those lines).

My edit was intended to avoid having the article take a position, by adding the possibility of the dualist solution ("yield") to the possibility of a monist solution ("be"). This is in keeping with Chalmer's original statement of the "hard problem":

"It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does."

He uses the verb "to arise", which Merriam-Webster defines as "to begin to occur or to exist". Of course, the same word could be used in the introduction, but ot wouldn't be the best writing style.J-Wiki (talk) 06:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

But this is exactly what acknowledging that it is a "hard problem" is meant to avoid. Yes, no one has any idea how a physical state could 'be' a mental state, but that already covers the fact that no one has any idea how a physical state could cause a mental state either!

The inability to be something does not necessarily preclude the ability to cause something.J-Wiki (talk) 06:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Singling out that particular symptom of the problem and elevating it to the statement of the (hard) problem itself amounts to giving one particular hypothesis a privileged position among the many (vacuous) hypotheses that have been the symptoms of the (hard) problem itself.

By the same token one might have extended the statement of the problem to include all of the popular hypothetical (and vacuous) non-solutions: (1) the physical is identical with the mental (materialism, identity theory), (2) the physical causes the mental (parallelism), (3) the mental interacts with the physical (interactionism), (4) the physical replaces the mental (eliminativism), (5) there is no mental (physicalism), (6) there is only the mental (mentalism), (7) the mental is our only perspective on the physical (dual aspectism), (8) mental states and physical states are all just "functional" states (functionalism), etc. etc.

All these non-explanatory non-solutions are already implied by the hard problem itself. That P might (somehow) be the "cause" of M is already one of the many inchoate hypotheses opened up by admitting that we have no idea whatsoever as to how P could "be" M (or M could "be" P).

Yes, there are other theoretical possibilities, but Chalmers didn't consider them popular enough to mention. Therefore, the article, in summarizing the topic, shouldn't.

Also, the recognition that there is a "hard problem" of consciousness does not imply that the solution must be monist. It is intended to make clear that finding physical explanations of even all of the "easy problems" will not solve the "hard problem".J-Wiki (talk) 06:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

That's why I think it would have been more NpV to use one neutral copula as the verb-of-puzzlement ("to be") rather than a neutral one plus an arbitrary choice among the many problematic hypotheses on the market ("to yield" -- i.e., "to cause").

As explained above, I don't see the verb "to be" as neutral in this case.J-Wiki (talk) 06:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

From glancing at (but not reading) other Wp articles you have edited, a hypothesis occurs to me: might your own PoV be influenced by quantum hypotheses...?

Which PoV would that be?J-Wiki (talk) 06:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

As for me: "Hypotheses non fingo" --User:Harnad (talk) 12:47, 10 September 2018 (UTC) --User:Harnad (talk) 13:07, 10 September 2018 (UTC) --User:Harnad (talk) 13:10, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments.

Please see my replies interspersed above.

The essence of this discussion should be copied to the article's talk page, so that others can benefit from the discussion for the purpose of editing the article.

J-Wiki (talk) 06:35, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

As you request, I will copy this exchange to the talk page of Hard problem of consciousness. Not to extend this side-discussion too long I will just make two replies:

(1) The hard problem is a problem of explanation: "how" and "why" do organisms feel rather than just function (insentiently, like machines)? Dave Chalmers did not claim to invent the hard problem, just to name it and point out that it is hard to explain how and why organisms feel rather than just function. Scientific explanation is not normally a metaphysical matter. "Monism" vs. "Dualism" (i.e., is there one kind of "stuff" in the universe ["physical"] or two kinds of "stuff" ["physical" and "mental"]?) is a metaphysical distinction, which in turns implies that the hard problem is hard for metaphysical reasons. But that is only one of many possible reasons why the hard problem is hard. Metaphysical dualism should not be given a privileged status among the myriad conceivable solutions to the hard problem, and it certainly should not be part of the definition of the hard problem. I think it is a mistake -- and misleading to WP readers -- to make metaphysical conjectures part of the definition of the hard problem. It is clear that some internal states of organisms are unfelt states and other internal states are felt states. The copula "are" here is not a metaphysical "are." It takes no sides on how or why some internal states are felt. It just states that they are, and that explaining how or why this is the case is hard. The copula "is" is not a statement of the "identity theory" or any other mataphysical conjecture or scientific hypothesis. It is just the "is" we use in any subject/predicate statement.

(2) What PoV might someone interested in quantum mechanical puzzles unwittingly import into their view of the hard problem? Well, wave/particle "duality," for a start...--User:Harnad (talk) 14:13, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your edit of the article today, effectively eliminating the issue with the wording.J-Wiki (talk) 04:36, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Time to set up auto-archiving of this page?

The talk page guidelines suggest archiving when the talk page exceeds 75 KB (or 75,000 bytes), or has multiple resolved or stale discussions. Length of this page is currently 89,746 bytes. Are there any objections to setting up automated archiving of this page? Biogeographist (talk) 18:01, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Since there has been no opposition after more than six months, I've turned on auto-archiving of the talk page. Biogeographist (talk) 16:17, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

No mention of the Meta Problem?

I came here and was surprised that the meta problem was not the title of any section of the page. So I did a word search, and found the word only appeared in the citation section in the title of a citation. It can't be left out like that, I'm sure I could cite wherever Chalmers said it was important. Maybe I'll add it to every place that mentions and describes the easy and hard problems side-by-side. BrianPansky (talk) 06:01, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Relevance of solving this "problem"

I would like to add a critic to the "relevance" of this question; the purpose of Science must be to explain phenomena and to be able to produce a "model" that can predict future events.

This question is revealed to me as absurd, in the way that is like explaining firstly something could be not falsifiable, secondly, a thing not so important, because the understanding of the much more testable human behavior could be applied to understand the "mental" processes, and finally an "abstract" thing such as "matter" that is beyond or understanding and could be an infinite process (in 100 years we will know more about the brain, but might not know everything even what is the essence of the "consciousness") leaving the topic forever unsolved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.39.214.62 (talk) 22:40, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Clarification in first sentence needed.

New to the topic, and I've struggled to comprehend the meaning of the first sentence, specifically the part below. Please edit to clarify or elaborate. I cannot do it myself because I don't know what is meant.

"how and why it is that some internal states are felt states, such as heat or pain, rather than unfelt states, as in a thermostat or a toaster.[1]"

1) heat and pain are qualitatively different- heat is experienced as a result of physical phenomenon- temperature of the body raising. Pain can be emotional. Are we talking about the states felt emotionally or as a result of physical phenomena? Are they conflated or separated?

2) The thermostat and toaster part also need elaboration. Not sure if it's meant that a toaster does not experience heat or pain? Or that we do not feel a toaster? Or that the toaster does not experience itself? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AK Petermann (talk • contribs) 18:25, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I totally agree. I came here as a link from Panpsychism and I don't understand what "unfelt states, as in a thermostat of a toaster" means. I even looked up the very very unusual word "unfelt" and I wasn't helped at all. Can someone fix this? If not, I guess I could try, but I'd rather have someone with more understanding jump in. Madman (talk) 21:56, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree. The cited source says nothing about thermostats. A quick google search reveals thermostats raised by Chalmers to discuss information processing as it relates to consciousness. Chalmers on thermostats. Chalmers is using the thermostat to discuss a sliding scale of information processing and qualia. In essence he is tracing an argument for panpsychism and the combination problem. In other words, throwing thermostats into the definition of the Hard Problem is to jump ahead several steps. So I'll go in and try to make the problem as accessible to the general reader in everyday language as I can. No doubt I will step on some toes depending on where you stand on the debate, but I think everyone gets a chance to ride their hobby horses lower down in the article. Cheers DolyaIskrina (talk) 20:33, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Quotes

Though they were all quite interesting, there were far too many quotes in the "historical predecessors" section, and it was dropping the page's overall level of professionalism. So, I made a wikiquote page and transferred all the quotes there instead. There should be a link to that page where the quotes used to be.

A.gee.dizzle (talk) 02:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)