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David Chalmers is a central figure in the philosophy of mind who defines the 'hard problem' of consciousness specifically as the problem of experience [1]. He argues that experience is irreducible to physical mechanisms [2] and characterizes it as the subjective, 'inside' aspect of information processing {fact:21, fact:28}.
Facts (38)
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Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness - David Chalmers consc.net 20 facts
claimDavid Chalmers suggests that the new fundamental property in his proposed Russellian view acts as a 'proto-experience' that enables the existence of experience.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that prima facie, the phenomena a theory of consciousness must account for include both functions (such as discrimination, integration, and report) and experience, and that explaining experience is distinct from explaining these functions.
claimDavid Chalmers states that the 'unconscious mentality' problem—the question of how experience emerges from non-experience—applies to any view postulating proto-experiential properties at the fundamental level, though it is likely less difficult than the original 'hard problem' of consciousness.
claimDavid Chalmers notes that the evidence used by physicists to introduce the fundamental categories of space and time is spatiotemporal in nature, just as the evidence for experience is experiential in nature.
perspectiveDavid Chalmers argues that the view that experience is fundamental to physical reality is not forced by quantum mechanics, as there are ways to interpret quantum mechanics while maintaining that fundamental physical reality has an objective existence.
claimDavid Chalmers observes that Warner's reliance on the term "unimpaired" to define incorrigible beliefs about experience risks circularity and requires a non-trivial explanation to resolve.
claimDavid Chalmers asserts that developing a detailed psychophysical theory requires cataloging and systematizing phenomenological data through patient attention to one's own experience.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that even if Daniel Dennett could demonstrate that function is required for experience, this does not prove that function is the only aspect of experience that requires explanation.
claimDavid Chalmers clarifies that his definition of "reportability" as an "easy" problem of consciousness refers to the presence of reports functionally construed, rather than requiring the presence of experience.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that Daniel Dennett's reductive accounts of phenomena like 'cuteness' and 'perception' fail to support reductionism about experience because they either lack plausibility or rely on experiential properties that reductive accounts omit.
perspectiveDavid Chalmers suspects that any property enabling consciousness must be hidden because an empirically adequate theory can always be described in terms of structure and dynamics that are compatible with the absence of experience.
claimDavid Chalmers suggests that one way to address nonconscious information is to identify further constraints on the type of information associated with experience, which might play a role in psychophysical laws.
claimDavid Chalmers asserts that no set of physical properties can constitute experience.
claimDavid Chalmers suggests that materialists might be able to account for the necessary connection between belief and experience by viewing it as an automatic product of the role experience plays in constituting the content of the belief.
claimDavid Chalmers asserts that explanations like 'brain B yields experience E' or 'oscillations yield consciousness' are insufficient because they are too complex and macroscopic, requiring further explanation themselves.
claimDavid Chalmers observes that most researchers currently focus on the 'macroscopic' regularities between information processing and experience, which he considers an appropriate approach.
perspectiveDavid Chalmers critiques the Hameroff-Penrose theory for focusing primarily on the physics of reduction in microtubules while leaving the explanation of experience largely unaddressed.
claimDavid Chalmers asserts that physical properties cannot imply experience due to the nature of physics, but the existence of novel intrinsic proto-experiential properties cannot be ruled out.
claimDavid Chalmers notes that the structural properties of experience, such as the geometry of a visual field, are more amenable to physical explanation than other phenomenal properties, yet still require a nonreductive principle to bridge the explanatory gap.
quoteDavid Chalmers characterizes the relationship between physics and experience as: "Physics is information from the outside; experience is information from the inside."
The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Springer Nature Link link.springer.com 7 facts
claimDavid Chalmers's definition of the 'hard problem of consciousness' was not entirely new, as René Descartes followed a similar rationale, and Thomas Nagel (1974) had previously pointed to the irreducibility of experience, specifically regarding 'what it is like to be a bat'.
claimDavid Chalmers attempts to define the physical by utilizing Bertrand Russell's observation that experience provides the only access to the intrinsic character of reality, contrasting it with the relational character of the physical described by causal laws.
claimDavid Chalmers suggests bypassing skeptical problems by giving us the physical world for free, though this leaves the essential character of the physical world and its relation to experience unexplained.
perspectiveDavid Chalmers argues that while interpretations of experience rely on metaphysical presuppositions, the notion of reality is not an illusion.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that while the 'easy problems' of consciousness can be explained by specifying neural or computational mechanisms, the 'hard problem' remains because explaining cognitive and behavioral functions leaves an open question regarding why the performance of these functions is accompanied by experience.
claimDavid Chalmers (2010) defines experience as the subjective aspect of consciousness that exists alongside the information processing occurring during thinking and perception.
claimDavid Chalmers observes that the knowledge argument by itself does not refute physicalism because experience might supervene on the physical, meaning experience could be explicable in terms of physical facts.
Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 3 facts
claimDavid Chalmers, Joseph Levine, and Saul Kripke argue that philosophical zombies are impossible within the bounds of nature but possible within the bounds of logic, implying that facts about experience are not logically entailed by physical facts and that consciousness is irreducible.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that experience is irreducible to physical systems like the brain because it is conceivable that behaviors associated with feelings, such as hunger, could occur even in the absence of the actual feeling.
claimDavid Chalmers defines consciousness using Thomas Nagel's concept of 'the feeling of what it is like to be something,' treating consciousness as synonymous with experience.
The Conscious Mind - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers defines phenomenal consciousness as experience, stating that something is phenomenologically conscious if it feels like something to be that entity.
Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness cambridge.org 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers argues that phenomenal judgments are unique because they do not require causal connection to the experience; instead, the experience is a constituent part of the thought or judgment, allowing for a non-causal theory of justification.
The Problem of Hard and Easy Problems cambridge.org 1 fact
quoteDavid Chalmers states: 'This is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will turn out to play an important cognitive role, but for any role it might play, there will be more to the explanation of experience than a simple explanation of the function.'
Hard Problem of Consciousness | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 1 fact
quoteDavid Chalmers stated in 1995: "What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?"
[PDF] David Chalmers, 'The hard problem of consciousness' openlearninglibrary.mit.edu 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers questions why physical processing in the brain results in a conscious inner life, specifically citing the experience of shapes and colors.
Consciousness and Cognitive Sciences journal-psychoanalysis.eu 1 fact
perspectiveDavid Chalmers assumes that the only way to bridge the gap between functional cognitive mechanisms and experience is to add a new theoretical principle, which he refers to as a 'necessary extra ingredient'.
Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Consciousness and the Intermediate ... frontiersin.org 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers raised the objection that because an object is not inside the body of an agent, it cannot be constitutive of or the cause of the agent's experience.
[PDF] Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness - David Chalmers consc.net 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers defines the 'hard problem' of consciousness as the problem of experience.