CHALMERS, David, The Hard Problem, April 22, 2014
<p class="MsoNormal" >CHALMERS, David, The Hard Problem, April 22, 2014
this is a keynote at TSC 2014 (David is an organizer with Stu)</p>
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Intro by Stu Hammeroff:
acknowledges deceased Dave Cantrell (artist: posters for 20 years of TSC) get these!</p>
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The Hard Problem: this was Dave's original talk 20 years ago at TSC:</p>
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Easy probs:
percep discrim; control of behavior; verbal report
just specify mechanism... no difficult philosoph probs...</p>
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but subjectivity is difft: why is it like this... something like it to be me</p>
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does hard problem go back to ancient greeks...
hard to find it...(in ancient literature)</p>
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Rene Descartes...
focused on thought, color (but he did have the long hair for it)</p>
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Isaac Newton: 1672
letter to Henry Oldenburg...</p>
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Leibniz 1714... from Monadology</p>
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one might go into a mill...find only parts which work one upon one another....
possibly focusing on an explanatory gap..</p>
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Thomas Huxley 1866:</p>
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how is it that anything so remarkable as a state of consc. comes about
as a result of irritating nervous tissue... (great quote)</p>
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Herbert Feigel 1967... postscript to the Mental and the Physical...</p>
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sentience is the most vexing of the triad of...</p>
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Thomas Nagel 1974: "what is it like to be a bat"</p>
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with consc it seems hopeless.</p>
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Hard Porblem: don't underestimate the importance of marketing ... he jokes...</p>
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it's a catchy name;
but also distinction btwn problems of consc.
and labels encapsulate an argument...</p>
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hard problem encapsulates an argument against the materialist position...</p>
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here is the argument</p>
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1) purely physical explanations only deal with easy probs (objective functions)</p>
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2) explaining consc requires more...</p>
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3)so, therefore, no purely physical explanation can explain consc.</p>
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so that was what I stated in 1994...</p>
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what happened since then...</p>
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1) materialist responses... here they are</p>
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1) type A materialsim... there is NO hard prob. explaining objective function
explains everything...</p>
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2) hard problem involves an epistemic gap, not an ontologic gap type B materialism</p>
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3) we need to enrich our notion of the objective world...</p>
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*</p>
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he attributes to Dennett: type A materialism</p>
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there is no hard problem: objec func explains everything.... due to dennett...</p>
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so, either consc does NOT exist or 2) explaining the functions explains consc.</p>
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type A materialism is an impt view.. Chalmers says...
but it is surprisingly unpopular (espec in this room with 600 or so people)</p>
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even archreductionists acknowledge it: crick, koch, kurzweil, pinker...</p>
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but the argument deserves developing
eg (for no other reason than) that we need a func explanation of the things we say abt consc.</p>
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what are the functional. explanations? (he wants to see this developed)</p>
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</p>
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Type B Materialism Ned Blcok:</p>
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hard prob. involves an epistemic gap, not an ontologic gap...</p>
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their view "there's a GAP btwn our concepts of consc and physical phenom..</p>
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(but it still leaves it unexplained)</p>
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</p>
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Nonreductive theories</p>
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eg Dualism: Martina....</p>
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but if true... there is NO causal role...</p>
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leading approach for this: a role for consc in collapsing quatum wave functions?
eg Henry Sapp, Chalmers/ McQueen (his student is developing it)</p>
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Panpsychism (is the flavor of the month) for nonreductive theories...</p>
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Pan(proto)psychism...</p>
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consc is present at microphysical levels (many enthusiasts: strawson, rosenberg, tononi, koch, hameroff/ penrose</p>
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Russellian paypsychism: consc serves as the intrinsic nature of ... the universe..</p>
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but The Combination Problem</p>
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the combo prob... how do microexplanations add up to macroexperience?</p>
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Idealism: (Bishop Berkeley) physical world exists only in the minds of observers
(but obvious probs)</p>
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Fundamental Theories:
of researchers: have develop quasiempirical theories of consc...
eg IIT Tononi... consc goes along with integrated info... (some fundamental property of nature)</p>
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Orch OR: Hameroff and Penrose;</p>
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consc goes along with gravitational wave form collapse...</p>
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both are fundamental theories... but both of these IIT and Orch OR also have
typeA materialist type explanations...</p>
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sometimes they say consc is fundamental and collapse / integr info are both fundamental...</p>
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but also Dualist Version of these theories:</p>
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Dave Chalmers own view on this*</p>
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he is 50:50 panpsychic and dualist side (he divides his credence 50-50 btwn pan(proto)psychism and dualism (with a few % on dennettian materialism)</p>
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but it's an emprical project to find a fundamental theory.</p>
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