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explanatory gap
Also known as: The Explanatory Gap, explanatory gap argument, explanatory gap problem
Facts (52)
Sources
Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness - David Chalmers consc.net 16 facts
claimDavid Chalmers argues that the explanatory gap between physical facts and facts about consciousness is expected once fundamental psychophysical laws are introduced into our picture of nature.
claimJoseph Levine introduced the term 'explanatory gap' in 1983.
claimDavid Chalmers notes that inter-level relationships like biochemistry/life and statistical mechanics/thermodynamics do not have an explanatory gap analogous to the brain-consciousness gap.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that the explanatory gap regarding consciousness is analogous to the explanatory gaps found in causal nexi, though humans are less accustomed to the former.
perspectiveDavid Chalmers agrees with Price's analogy regarding explanatory gaps but argues that it supports his own view of the problem of consciousness.
perspectiveDavid Chalmers argues that the explanatory gap regarding consciousness should not be viewed as a unique mystery, but rather as a type of gap that is ubiquitous in science and fundamental physics.
claimColin McGinn proposes that the explanatory gap between physical facts and consciousness arises from human cognitive limitations, which prevent us from grasping the conceptual implication from physical facts to facts about consciousness.
referenceClark, T. (1995) authored 'Function and phenomenology: Closing the explanatory gap', published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies 2:241-54.
claimDavid Chalmers explains that causal nexi have explanatory gaps because of their contingency, which stems from the brute contingency of fundamental laws.
claimDavid Chalmers posits that if Price's analogy is correct, the explanatory gap between the brain and consciousness arises from contingency in connecting principles caused by brutely contingent fundamental laws.
perspectiveDavid Chalmers argues that Price's analogy between the brain-consciousness relation and ordinary causal relations helps demonstrate that believing in an explanatory gap does not necessitate adopting mysterianism.
claimDavid Chalmers asserts that explanatory gaps accompany every causal nexus, but humans are accustomed to these gaps in most cases.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that the explanatory gap regarding consciousness does not depend on ontological assumptions, but rather on the conceptual distinction between structural/functional concepts and consciousness.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that relationships like biochemistry/life and statistical mechanics/thermodynamics lack an explanatory gap because high-level facts are necessitated by low-level facts.
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.
claimDavid Chalmers posits that moving from facts about physical structure and function to facts about conscious experience requires an extra step and a substantial principle to bridge the explanatory gap.
Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 9 facts
quoteJoseph Levine stated: "The explanatory gap argument doesn't demonstrate a gap in nature, but a gap in our understanding of nature."
referenceNed Block and Robert Stalnaker published the paper 'Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap' in The Philosophical Review in 1999.
claimJoseph Levine argues that thought experiments demonstrate an explanatory gap between consciousness and the physical world, asserting that even if consciousness is reducible to physical things, it cannot be explained in terms of physical things because the link between them is contingent.
referenceDavid Chalmers contributed the chapter 'Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap' to the book 'Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism', published by Oxford University Press in 2006.
perspectiveJoseph Levine contends that full scientific understanding will not close the explanatory gap, and that analogous gaps do not exist for other identities in nature, such as the relationship between water and H2O.
referenceJoseph Levine introduced the concept of the 'explanatory gap' regarding materialism and qualia in his 1983 paper 'Materialism and qualia: the explanatory gap'.
perspectiveJoseph Levine considers the possibility that the explanatory gap between consciousness and the physical world is merely an epistemological problem for physicalism, rather than evidence that consciousness is non-physical.
claimIn 1983, philosopher Joseph Levine proposed that there is an explanatory gap between the understanding of the physical world and the understanding of consciousness.
referenceJoseph Levine authored 'The Explanatory Gap' in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind, published in 2009.
Theories and Methods of Consciousness biomedres.us Jan 29, 2024 6 facts
claimThe 'explanatory gap' refers to the theoretical difficulty of explaining how neural correlates of consciousness produce phenomenal subjective experiences.
perspectiveBehaviorism is problematic because it fails to address the explanatory gap, the hard problem of consciousness, the binding problem of how neural correlates create unified phenomenal experiences, and subjective phenomenal experiences.
referenceLevine J published 'Materialism and qualia: the explanatory gap' in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly in 1983.
claimContemporary psychological theories, including humanism, behaviorism, and cognitivism, are considered problematic due to their inability to address four specific theoretical, methodological, and evidentiary issues: the explanatory gap, contrast analysis, the hard and binding problems of consciousness, and the evidentiary issue of consciousness persisting outside the brain.
claimFeinberg E T and Mallatt J argued in 2020 that phenomenal consciousness is an emergent property and that the explanatory gap can be eliminated.
quote“The three kinds of evidence are also consistent with the brain as being a receiver of external consciousness information,” which eliminates the explanatory gap and the hard problem of consciousness.
The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Springer Nature Link link.springer.com 4 facts
claimThe explanatory gap between physical and phenomenal accounts of consciousness has been a topic of discussion in the mind-body problem for centuries.
claimThe arguments regarding the irreducibility of consciousness postulate an explanatory gap between physical and phenomenal accounts, implying an ontological distinction between phenomenal and physical properties.
claimGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's "mills argument" is historically one of the earliest and most prominent observations regarding the explanatory gap between physical and phenomenal accounts of consciousness.
claimDavid Chalmers uses the concept of 'irreducibility' to define the explanatory gap between phenomenal experience (how it feels to be) and physical accounts of neuronal activity, cognition, and behavior.
Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2025 ... plato.stanford.edu Jun 18, 2004 3 facts
claimType-type identity theory has seen a modest resurgence regarding qualia, or qualitative conscious properties, because some philosophers argue that treating the psycho-physical link as an identity dissolves the explanatory gap problem.
perspectiveThe 'explanatory gap' claim has a strong version which asserts that due to inherent human cognitive limits, humans will never be able to bridge the gap between consciousness and physical substrates, leaving it a residual mystery (McGinn 1991).
claimJoseph Levine (1983) coined the term 'explanatory gap' to describe the current inability to provide an intelligible link between consciousness and a nonconscious, particularly physical, substrate.
Consciousness and Cognitive Sciences journal-psychoanalysis.eu 3 facts
claimAdvocates of the 'explanatory gap' argument criticize Cognitive Science for failing to account for phenomenality or subjectivity, either by ignoring them or by failing to explain them.
claimThe 'hypothesis of mutual calculation through generative constraints' is proposed as an alternative to isomorphic approaches for bridging the explanatory gap in consciousness studies.
quoteThomas Nagel described the concern that cognitive science suffers from an 'explanatory gap' regarding certain mental phenomena.
Hard Problem of Consciousness | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 2 facts
claimThe 'hard problem of consciousness' is defined as the challenge of closing the 'explanatory gap' between consciousness and the physical.
perspectiveJoseph Levine asserts that consciousness presents an explanatory gap because, even with a complete specification of brain mechanisms and physical laws, it remains an open question whether consciousness is present.
A harder problem of consciousness: reflections on a 50-year quest ... frontiersin.org 1 fact
perspectiveThe author argues that the Hard Problem of Consciousness may be framed on questionable grounds because it overlooks mysteries that arise prior to the explanatory gap known as the alchemy of qualia.
Panpsychism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2015 Edition) plato.stanford.edu May 23, 2001 1 fact
claimDavid Chalmers refers to the difficulty of explaining consciousness as the 'hard problem of consciousness,' which is also known as the 'explanatory gap' or the 'generation problem'.
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness plato.stanford.edu Nov 30, 2004 1 fact
claimThe 'hard problem of consciousness' refers to the explanatory gap between third-person and first-person accounts of mental states.
The development of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective academia.edu 1 fact
perspectiveThe 'explanatory gap' regarding consciousness is illusory because both first-person and third-person ontologies refer to the same physical state.
Non-Reductive Physicalism - Theories of Consciousness theoriesofconsciousness.com 1 fact
claimThe explanatory gap in non-reductive physicalism suggests that even complete physical knowledge may not fully explain subjective experience, indicating an epistemic rather than an ontological gap.
Resolving the evolutionary paradox of consciousness link.springer.com Apr 1, 2024 1 fact
claimFormal arguments against physicalism include the knowledge argument proposed by Jackson in 1982, the conceivability or zombie argument proposed by Chalmers in 1996, and the explanatory gap argument proposed by Levine in 1983.
David Chalmers - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 1 fact
perspectiveDavid Chalmers argues for an 'explanatory gap' from the objective to the subjective and criticizes physicalist explanations of mental experience, identifying himself as a dualist.
What is hard about the “hard problem of consciousness”? philosophy.stackexchange.com Nov 18, 2020 1 fact
claimProponents of the 'hard problem' of consciousness argue that qualia are intrinsic, ineffable, and private, which creates an unbridgeable 'explanatory gap' between physical knowledge and the subjective experience of having qualia.
Adversarial testing of global neuronal workspace and ... - Nature nature.com Apr 30, 2025 1 fact
referenceMelloni and Singer (2011) discussed the 'explanatory gap' in neuroscience in their paper published in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Acta.