Knowledge Tree
phenomenal experience
Also known as: phenomenal experience, phenomenal experiences, phenomenal subjective experience
Facts (42)
Sources
The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Springer Nature Link link.springer.com 20 facts
claimMonist ontologies are excluded from solving the hard problem of consciousness because they either eliminate phenomenal experience or the physical world, or suggest that one is reducible to the other, which conflicts with the premises from which the hard problem is derived.
accountIn David Chalmers' hypothetical zombie-world, every person has a 'zombie clone' who behaves exactly like the original person but lacks any phenomenal experience or subjective awareness.
claimFrom a physicalist perspective, a universe containing zombie-twins who behave like humans but lack phenomenal experience is considered perfectly conceivable.
accountDuring the time of René Descartes, philosophers across various schools of thought unanimously agreed that they possessed phenomenal experience and that this experience was the sole access to reality.
claimThe hard problem of consciousness includes the question of why psychophysical processes are correlated with phenomenal experience, effectively asking why consciousness exists.
claimThe author asserts that the 'hard problem of consciousness' is the fundamental challenge of modern science because there is no established theory of mind and matter, which creates an epistemic gap between objective description and phenomenal experience.
claimThe 'knowledge argument' posits that knowledge about the physical correlates of phenomenal experience does not equate to knowledge about what it feels like to have that experience.
referenceDavid Chalmers's conceivability argument posits that it is impossible to distinguish "zombie" philosophers of mind from conscious individuals because their behavior is identical and it is impossible to know the internal state of a "zombie" who lacks phenomenal experience.
claimContinuity and intersubjectivity are properties that suggest the existence of the physical and differentiate it from phenomenal experience.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that the 'hard problem of consciousness' is not about tracing neuronal processes and their correlation with cognitive processes, but about explaining why physical activity is accompanied by phenomenal experience.
claimGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz argued that if the mind were produced by a machine, such as a windmill, a detailed description of the machine's mechanical movements would fail to provide a sufficient account of phenomenal experience.
claimDavid Chalmers argues that because behavior can be explained in purely physical terms, it is possible for 'zombie-twins' to behave exactly like humans despite having no phenomenal experience.
claimDavid Chalmers defines second-order phenomenal judgments (DPJ) as judgments that relate to the existence, rather than the quality, of phenomenal experience.
claimReflexive reasoning about phenomenal experience creates a paradox, especially when that reasoning results in physical actions such as speaking or writing phrases like 'cogito ergo sum'.
claimInteractionists and epiphenomenalists face the challenge of explaining how phenomenal experience emerges from physical processes, as both are considered irreducible to each other.
claimDavid Chalmers does not appear to distinguish between the fact of incorrigible phenomenal experiencing (what it is like to be) and the supposed existence of 'the phenomenal' as an irreducible ontic category, according to observations by von Stillfried.
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.
claimArguments attempting to disprove the existence of a hard problem of consciousness necessarily lead to either the elimination of phenomenal experience (physicalism) or the elimination of the physical world (idealism/solipsism).
claimPhysicalists often characterize their own phenomenal experiences as meaningless byproducts of brain activity, despite experiencing the same rich qualia as dualists or idealists.
perspectiveVon Stillfried argues that David Chalmers's concept of acquaintance solves the epistemological question of how one knows they have consciousness, but fails to solve the ontological question of why there is concordance between phenomenal experience and physical correlata or whether consciousness is explanatorily relevant.
The function(s) of consciousness: an evolutionary perspective frontiersin.org Nov 25, 2024 7 facts
claimThe author of the article uses the term "selector circuits (SCs)" to refer to the neurocircuits responsible for producing specific phenomenal experiences, while Klein et al. (2020) refer to these same circuits as "difference makers of consciousness (DMCs)."
claimThrough 'species memory,' individuals can recall the past phenomenal experiences of their ancestors by re-experiencing them.
claimThe article 'The function(s) of consciousness: an evolutionary perspective' lists 'memory theories of consciousness, agency, phenomenal experience, qualia, species memory' as its keywords.
referenceAxel Cleeremans and C. Tallon-Baudry published 'Consciousness matters: phenomenal experience has functional value' in Neuroscience of Consciousness in 2022.
perspectiveThe author's analysis distinguishes between an initial function for phenomenal experience in memory-dependent motivational control and a later, expanded role in global oversight.
claimConsciousness allows information related to hazards of the real world to be encoded in the genome within the assembly instructions for neural circuits responsible for phenomenal experience, or qualia.
referenceLacalli (2021) provides a precise formulation of the argument that evolution acts on the specific neurocircuits responsible for producing particular phenomenal experiences.
Theories and Methods of Consciousness biomedres.us Jan 29, 2024 4 facts
claimThe 'explanatory gap' refers to the theoretical difficulty of explaining how neural correlates of consciousness produce phenomenal subjective experiences.
claimThe 'hard problem' of consciousness concerns accounting for how the brain functions to produce phenomenal subjective experience, while the 'binding problem' concerns how the brain integrates these 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.
claimConsciousness is defined as the subjective awareness of phenomenal experiences, including ideology, language, self, feelings, choice, control of voluntary behavior, and thoughts regarding internal and external worlds.
Non-physicalist Theories of Consciousness cambridge.org Dec 20, 2023 3 facts
claimDual-aspect monists propose that consciousness might realize physical structure, or that the relations described by physics are relations between phenomenal experiences.
claimEpiphenomenalism faces a challenge regarding why phenomenal experiences, such as pain or the experience of seeing red, are by-products of specific physical states that cause corresponding behaviors, such as avoidance or verbal reports, rather than arbitrary behaviors.
referenceBrian Cutter and Dustin Crummett discuss correlations between phenomenal experiences and physical states, referring to these instances as 'psychophysical harmony' in their forthcoming work.
The development of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective academia.edu 2 facts
claimThe author of 'The development of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective' argues that analyzing the relationship between two theories can provide a better understanding of consciousness and resolve philosophical problems regarding subjectivity, phenomenal experience, and qualia.
claimThe reciprocative duality between the experiencer and the experienced influences phenomenal experience, which possesses its own subjective, ontological nature, even when the core interface is subsumed within the complexity of the neuronal group.
David Chalmers on the meta-problem of consciousness selfawarepatterns.com Apr 6, 2019 2 facts
perspectiveThe author of the source text argues that describing phenomenal experience as 'constructed' is more productive than describing it as an 'illusion,' because if phenomenal experience is an illusion, the illusion itself is the experience.
claimDavid Chalmers coined the term 'hard problem of consciousness' to describe the intractably difficult issue of how and why phenomenal experience arises from a physical system.
Consciousness, Attention, and Conscious Attention psychologytoday.com Jun 9, 2015 1 fact
claimForms of 'conscious attention' include those related to phenomenal experiences, dreams, self-awareness, autobiographical memories, reflexive thoughts, and effortless attention.
The Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visionary Experiences - Frontiers frontiersin.org Sep 27, 2017 1 fact
referenceNeurophenomenology is an approach to understanding the structure and content of phenomenal experience in terms of principles operating at the neurological level, as established by Laughlin et al. (1992), Varela (1996), Thompson and Varela (2001), and Thompson (2007).
Global workspace theory: consciousness as brain wide information ... selfawarepatterns.com Dec 29, 2019 1 fact
claimPeter Carruthers attempts to philosophically explain how Global Workspace Theory accounts for phenomenal experience in his latest book, though his position as a 'qualia irrealist' may limit the persuasiveness of his argument for some readers.
PANPSYCHISM (Philosophy of Mind Series) - Amazon.com amazon.com 1 fact
quoteAchim Stephan concludes that emergentism lacks an answer for how complex organisms without experiential features instantiate phenomenal experiences, whereas panpsychism attributes primitive mental properties to the basic entities of nature.