Closer To Truth — YouTube
David Chalmers is one of the most important thinkers in our modern understandings of consciousness, largely because he has articulated the problem that arises from materialism as, in his term ‘the hard problem’ of consciousness.
Chalmers observed that in theory we could explain everything about the brain as physical process, completely map everything going on and still not arrive at or explain consciousness because of an apparently fundamental distinction between matter and consciousness.
Yet materialism, the view that physical processes and matter give rise to and explain all processes, still persists and like any position they have to offer an explanation for how consciousness fits into this scheme. Chalmers has outlined three main ways in which materialism has to accommodate the fact of consciousness.
Chalmers’ three types of materialism
Type A — Deny consciousness exists
This may seem radical or delusional but it is surprisingly persistent, found in figures such as Daniel Dennett who essentially sees the idea that consciousness is unique as a kind of vitalism not really worthy of indulgence. Essentially this views argues that our belief that there is such a thing as consciousness is essentially an illusion of the…
