Why the Problem of Consciousness Is so Hard
I just read a great article in The Guardian about the struggle of scientists and philosophers to understand consciousness (link at the end). The Guardian article covers the history of the quest to understand consciousness as well as some of the currently posited explanations, ranging form materialism (“there is no consciousness”) to panpsychism (“this is only consciousness”). After reading it, I had to email my favorite philosopher, David Chalmers, who is featured in the article and who labeled the issue of understanding the “I am” aspect of consciousness as The Hard Problem. One of the tools-of-thought he uses is the concept of a “philosophical zombie.” This is not a rotting corpse that can walk, but a supposedly imaginary functional human-being with no sense of self, and therefore no subjective experience. This is where my email begins:
Hey David,
I’ve been thinking about consciousness for a while.
Did you know that there actually are what you call “zombies” in the world?
What those zombies have to say about consciousness is eye-opening.
The claim is that the sense of being a separate individual, a kind of trick that the brain plays, actually hides the fundamental nature of reality. The fundamental nature of reality is an indescribable absolute in which there is no…
