The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Examining the "Hard Problem", and expanding on its definition.
David Chalmers
Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist
"The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. ...The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. ...When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought."
Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
The "Hard Problem of Consciousness" is a phrase coined by philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers -- and is recognized as a key topic of discussion for defining a theory of mind. The Hard Problem highlights how physicalist/materialist views of consciousness may fall short, because they cannot account for subjectivity, and the "feeling of participation in reality" that conscious beings have.
What is it Like?
The hard problem is often framed with questions like "what is it like to see red?", or "what is it like to be a bat?" What does the feeling of happiness or sadness feel like? Can it be reduced to a specific firing of neurons in the brain? Or are there "conscious feelings" that are completely outside the realm of what a materialist/physicalist definition can serve up?
The Knowledge Argument - Thought Experiment: Mary's Conscious Experience
The thought experiment of Mary is often used by Panpsychists to make a case that the Materialist paradigm for consciousness can't be right.
The thought experiment goes like this:
1. A great scientist, Mary, is born in a black and white room, and lives her entire life in this room, completely devoid of any color.
2. Mary spends her life studying neuroscience, philosophy, psychology and physics. She learns every possible fact about the topic of color vision, to the point where there is not a single bit of information about how color works that she doesn't have a deep understanding of. She knows the wavelengths of colors, the exact way the rods and cones in our eyes convert light wavelengths into information, the neuron sequences that may fire when a specific color is shown, the history of color usage and language associations with specific colors, and all other possible facts about color vision. There is not a single fact about vision or colors that Mary doensn't know.
3. One day, the door to Mary's black and white room is opened, and she is brought outside into our world full of colors.
4. Now that Mary is outside and seeing color for herself for the first time, she sees red apples, yellow bananas, green leaves and a bright blue sky. She gets the first hand experience, and feels "what its like to see red" and other colors. Mary is overwhelmed by this experience and finds herself to gain all this new "conscious information" that she didn't have before, even though she already knew every possibly fact about color vision that can be known.
The claim, from this thought experiment, is that if the physicalist/materialist view of consciousness were true, then Mary should not gain any new information when she steps out the door and actually experiences color for the first time. The first hand experience should be completely reducible to materialist descriptions of physics and neuroscience, and since Mary already was the world's pre-eminent expert on the topic of color, and knows every possible fact about color, she should not be gaining any new information... but instinctively, we all know that experiencing color for yourself goes beyond having a master's knowledge of this perception.
The Problem with Mary
Though Consciocentrism follows a view similar to panpsychism, here we will steel man the counter argument to the case of Mary, as its not the best thought experiment to make the case.
1. Firstly, the setup is not entirely clear. If Mary is in a black and white room, with only white light and objects which are shades of gray, technically, she is still receiving all the wavelengths of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, etc. She is just receiving them all in relative equilibrium. ie: Not absorption or refraction occurs ever... she must have gray skin? From a technical standpoint, its not the best set up, and perhaps Mary should have to live in a completely dark room devoid of any light or sight. Lets skip this issue for now though, and assume the setup is sound, and dive into the rest of the though experiment.
2. The idea that Mary can know "everything" about color and obtain all the "information" about sensing color could be argued to be not possible. The idea that a specific firing of neurons is the exact equivalent of the experience is still different from having those neurons fire in Mary's brain while she is in the black room. Some versions of this thought experiment might go so far as to say, Mary also has invented a high tech machine which allows her to fire specific sets of neurons in her brain, while she is still living in the black and white room. But this scenario is fraught with issues, if the idea of subjectivity and uniqueness of brains is raised. (ie: everyone's brain is different structurally, and from a neural connection standpoint... we can't identify a single neuron, like neuron #37,884,763,926 that is in each persons brain, that when fired, produces the same result in different people) So, the premise that she can "know everything" / "have all the information" is flawed. Not all brains are equal, and subjectivity becomes an issue. More on subjectivity later.
3. Mary experiences color in first person for the first time. No issue with the thought experiment here, other than the nuances mentioned above about the setup.
4. The claim is that Mary's experience of colors gives her "New Information" that cannot be explained by physicalism/materialism. A saavy physicalist/materialist might posit that yes, Mary gets a new experience and receives new information when she experiences color, but this is just due to that fact that she never had those neural synapses triggered exactly the same before. Where this rebuttal falls apart is in the assumption that its even possible for any two humans to have the same exact "feeling" - due to reasons outlined in #2 above. Subjectivity and conscious history is a key component of "what it feels like" to experience something. Ultimately, the "Case of Mary" is not a great thought experiment.
The ConscioCentric View of Consciousness and the Mary Thought Experiment
Consciocentrism follows a theory of mind similar to panpsychism, stating that consciousness is an intrinsic component of reality. (Reality is 3-Dimensions of Space + 4th Dimension of Time + 5th Dimension of Many Worlds). In the Consciocentric view, all matter possesses "conscious potential". That is not to say that we should give equivalence of an atoms consciousness to a humans consciousness, but rather conscious potential is enfolded into all 3D matter, and with relationships of matter through 4D time, conscious information is created and conscious movements are unweaved.
The Mary example above is not the best thought experiment, due to the reasons outlined above. Ultimately, consciousness and "conscious feeling" is subjective in nature. What it feels like to see a color, or be an animal, is not a singular thing that can be replicated across conscious beings - rather, it is the result of a composite image of information that has been subjectively gathered through the conscious being's existence.
The Currency of Consciousness is Information
Information is ultimately the content/currency of consciousness. Information is defined as the relationships of states of 3D matter, juxtaposed through 4D time.
What Does it Feel Like?
Many people define consciousness as "The Feeling of Participation in Reality". Participation in Reality requires a combination of sensing the 3D environment and ability to make changes to the configuration of 3D matter. The "Feeling" is a result of juxtaposing changes to the 3D material world over 4D time. Our feeling associated with the "redness of the color red" is due to a juxtaposition of all of our previous experiences with red objects. When we see red, a conscious composite of various past experiences with roses, apples, artwork, blood, and other red objects is triggered in our minds in a composite sort of image through time. For someone who has experienced living through terrible wartimes where family or friends have been witnessed bleeding out to death, the color of red will have a different "feeling" than someone who's experiences with red have been primarily eating their favorite red apple fruits and receiving red roses for valentines day. Subjectivity is a key aspect to "what it feels like" Subjectivity exists in the juxtaposition of 3D moments through the 4th dimension of time.
Consciousness is Dimensional in Nature
Consciocentrism states that the Many World Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics is the most accurate, though Consciocentrism posits that MWI indicates a 5-Dimensional canvas where 4D timelines exists (the many worlds). This 5D canvas of MWI is where consciousness exists. Consider for a moment, the taken for granted, but extraordinary ability for our conscious minds to have memories, or to visualize potential future courses of action, alternate paths taken, or to visualize completely novel places and times with our imagination. These extraordinary capabilities are beyond anything the physicalism or materialism can explain. These conscious movements are our minds traversing the 5D block universe of many worlds. Reality, and the "moment of now", traveling forward on the arrow of time, is a composite image of the 5D many worlds, where the most variants overlap and align to create what appears to be solid reality in the present moment. The reason for the one-direction arrow of time is still a bit mysterious, though other areas of this site examine the topic further.
The Consciocentric Hard Problem - Memory, Planning, Imagination
Rather than the Mary Thought Experiment, Consciocentrism would say that the "Hard Problem" should really be in explaining how humans and other conscious beings have the capability for memory, future planning, for visualizing alternate paths taken -- or for imagining in 3D space and 4D time, any possible novel configuration of the universe, whether it has existed before or not. These aspects of consciousness are the bedrock components of consciousness, and they are just taken for granted by most.
Neuroscience has shown that memory is not as straightforward as just identifying neurons that fire. Yes, there are some relationships and correlations that build up due to electromagnetic and chemical histories in the brain, but there is far more going on than a materialist/physicalist view of mind can provide. How is it at all possible that we can dream up an alien world in elaborate detail, or imagine events in our future and plan their execution, or consider alternate paths taken. How is it that we can, at a moments notice, move from considering past to future, to alternate paths sideways through time, to considering spans of geological time or cosmological time, to focus on an extremely short millisecond based timespan around the moment of now to achieve flow state consciousness and perform extraordinary physical feats. Consciousness exists in the 5D block universe and can freely traverse forward and backward in 4D time, and consider 5D many worlds possibilities.
Roger PenrosePhysicist, Mathematician "A scientific world-view which does not profoundly come to terms with the problem of conscious minds can have no serious pretensions of completeness."
Roger PenrosePhysicist, Mathematician "I believe that the problem of quantum measurement should be faced and solved well before we can expect to make any real headway with the issue of consciousness in terms of physical action-and that the measurement problem must be solved in entirely physical terms. Once we are in possession of a satisfactory solution, then we may be in a better position to move towards some kind of answer to the question of consciousness. It is my view that solving the quantum measurement problem is a prerequisite for an understanding of mind and not at all that they are the same problem. The problem of mind is a much more difficult problem than the measurement problem!"
David ChalmersPhilosopher and Cognitive Scientist "The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods. ...The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. ...When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought."
David ChalmersPhilosopher and Cognitive Scientist "Another useful way to avoid confusion [used by e.g. Allen Newell 1990 Unified Theories of Cognition] is to reserve the term "consciousness" for the phenomena of experience, using the less loaded term "awareness" for the more straightforward phenomena... If such a convention were widely adopted, communication would be much easier; as things stand, those who talk about "consciousness" are frequently talking past each other."
David ChalmersPhilosopher and Cognitive Scientist "Why should there be conscious experience at all? It is central to a subjective viewpoint, but from an objective viewpoint it is utterly unexpected. Taking the objective view, we can tell a story about how fields, waves, and particles in the spatiotemporal manifold interact in subtle ways, leading to the development of complex systems such as brains. In principle, there is no deep philosophical mystery in the fact that these systems can process information in complex ways, react to stimuli with sophisticated behavior, and even exhibit such complex capacities as learning, memory, and language. All this is impressive, but it is not metaphysically baffling. In contrast, the existence of conscious experience seems to be a new feature from this viewpoint. It is not something that one would have predicted from the other features alone. That is, consciousness is surprising. "
David ChalmersPhilosopher and Cognitive Scientist "The subject matter is perhaps best characterized as “the subjective quality of experience.” When we perceive, think, and act, there is a whir of causation and information processing, but this processing does not usually go on in the dark. There is also an internal aspect; there is something it feels like to be a cognitive agent. This internal aspect is conscious experience. Conscious experiences range from vivid color sensations to experiences of the faintest background aromas; from hard-edged pains to the elusive experience of thoughts on the tip of one’s tongue; from mundane sounds and smells to the encompassing grandeur of musical experience; from the triviality of a nagging itch to the weight of a deep existential angst; from the specificity of the taste of peppermint to the generality of one’s experience of selfhood. All these have a distinct experienced quality. All are prominent parts of the inner life of the mind. We can say that a being is conscious if there is something it is like to be that being, to use a phrase made famous by Thomas Nagel."
David ChalmersPhilosopher and Cognitive Scientist "We won't have a theory of everything without a theory of consciousness."
Francis CrickBiologist, Neuroscientist "Since the problem of consciousness is such a central one, and since consciousness appears so mysterious, one might have expected that psychologists and neuroscientists would now direct major efforts toward understanding it. This, however, is far from being the case. The majority of modern psychologists omit any mention of the problem, although much of what they study enters into consciousness. Most modern neuroscientists ignore it. ...Not only because of experimental difficulties but also because they considered the problem both too subjective and too "philosophical," and thus not easily amenable to experimental study."
Bernard CarrProfessor, Mathematician, Cosmologist "Knowing that the experience of consciousness is affected by the brain is not the same as saying that the brain actually generates the consciousness... there is a different view which says that actually consciousness is, in some sense, more fundamental and that the brain is merely a mechanism through which the consciousness can observe the universe. "
Bernard CarrProfessor, Mathematician, Cosmologist "Consciousness is not just generated as a result of physical processes... it’s there from the beginning. It's a primary, a fundamental component, rather than a secondary component of the universe."