The difficult problem of consciousness is a matter of explaining how and why we have qualia or phenomenal experience - how sensations derive characteristics, such as colors and tastes. The philosopher David Chalmers, who introduced the term "difficult problem" of consciousness, compared this with "easy problems" in explaining the ability to differentiate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, The easy problem is easy because all it takes for their solution is to determine the mechanism that can perform the function. That is, the solution they propose, regardless of how complicated or poorly understood they are, can be entirely consistent with the modern materialist concept of natural phenomena. Chalmers claims that the problem of experience differs from this set, and he argues that the experience problem will "persist even when the performance of all relevant functions is explained".
The existence of "difficult problems" is controversial and has been debated by philosophers such as Daniel Dennett and cognitive neuroscientists such as Stanislas Dehaene. Clinical neurologist and skeptic Steven Novella called it a "difficult problem".
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formulasi Chalmers
In Facing Consciousness Problems (1995), Chalmers wrote:
It is undeniable that some organisms are the subject of experience. But the question of how this system is the subject of a confusing experience. Why when our cognitive systems engage in the processing of visual and auditory information, we have visual or auditory experience: dark blue quality, middle C sensation? How can we explain why there is something like entertaining a mental image, or experiencing emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we do not have a good explanation of why and how it arises. Why does the physical process bring about a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should be, and rightly so.
In the same paper, he also writes:
A very difficult problem of consciousness is a matter of experience. When we think and feel there is information processing whitening, but there is also a subjective aspect.
The philosopher Raamy Majeed noted in 2016 that a difficult problem, in fact, is related to two "explanatory targets":
- [PQ] Physical processes produce an experience with phenomenal character.
- [Q] Our phenomenal quality is so-and-so.
The first fact concerns the relationship between physical and phenomenal, while the second concerns the phenomenal nature itself. Most responses to problems are difficult to explain either one of these facts or both.
Easy issues
Chalmers contrast the difficult problem with a relatively easy problem of consciousness. He stressed that the equality of an easy problem is that they all represent some ability, or performance of some function or behavior. Examples of easy issues include:
- the ability to differentiate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
- integration of information by the cognitive system;
- reportability of mental states;
- the system's ability to access its own internal state;
- the focus of attention;
- deliberate behavior control;
- the difference between awake and sleep.
Other formats
Other formulations of "difficult problems" include:
- "How could some organisms be the subject of experience?"
- "Why is awareness of sensory information at all?"
- "Why do qualia exist?"
- "Why are there subjective components to experience?"
- "Why are not we philosophical zombies?"
Predecessor history
The difficult problem had a scientific introduction much earlier than Chalmers, as Chalmers himself had pointed out.
Physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton wrote in a 1672 letter to Henry Oldenburg:
to determine in what way or light is produced in our minds, color fantasies are not so easy.
Dalam An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), filsuf dan dokter John Locke berpendapat:
Divide the material into small parts as you wish (which we tend to imagine a kind of spiritualization or make things think about it) varying the figure and movement as much as you expect - globes, cubes, cones, prisms, cylinders, etc. , whose diameter is only 1,000,000 parts of gry, will operate not vice versa on other bodies with proportionate proportions rather than an inch diameter or leg - and you may rationally hope to generate reason, thought, and knowledge by putting together, in certain shapes and movements, coarse material particles, such as by the smallest people anywhere. They knock, push, and hold each other, just as bigger; and that's all they can do... [I] it's impossible to understand that matter, whether with or without motion, may come from, perception, and knowledge; as it proves, the senses, perceptions, and knowledge must be a property that is indefinitely inseparable from matter and every particle.
Polymath and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz wrote in 1714, for example also known as Leibniz gap:
In addition, it must be admitted that perception and what depends on it can not be explained on a mechanical basis, that is, by numbers and movement. And if there is a machine, constructed to think, feel, and have perception, it may be conceived as its size increases, while still having the same proportion, so that one can enter into it as to grinding. Thus, we must, in examining the interior, only find the parts that work with each other, and never anything that can explain a perception.
Filsuf dan ekonom politik J.S. Mill menulis di A System of Logic (1843), Book V, Bab V, bagian 3:
Now I am far from pretending that it may not be able to prove, or that it is not an important addition to our knowledge if it is proved, that certain movements in the particles of the body are conditions of heat or light production; that certain physical modifications of the nerves may be conditions not only from our sensations or emotions, but even from our minds; that certain mechanical and chemical conditions can, in the order of nature, suffice to determine the actions of the physiological laws of life. What I emphasize, in common with every thinker who gives a clear idea of ​​the logic of science, is that it will not be assumed that by proving these things one step will be made toward a real explanation of heat, light, or sensation. ; or that the generic peculiarities of these phenomena can be at the lowest level avoided by such discoveries, no matter how established. Let it be shown, for example, that the most complex physical sequence and effect sequences work with each other in the eye and in the brain to produce color sensations; the rays fall on the eyes, refracted, coalesce, cross each other, make the image upside down on the retina, and after this movement - let it be a vibration, or fluid flow, or whatever you like, along the optic nerve - propagation of this movement to the brain alone, and as many different moves as you choose; still, at the end of this movement, there is something that is not motion, there is a feeling or sensation of color. No matter how many moves we may be able to interpolate, and whether it is real or imaginary, we will still find, at the end of the series, a movement that precedes and a consequence of color. The mode in which one of the subsequent generating movements may be susceptible to explanation by some common law of motion: but the mode in which the last movement produces a color sensation can not be explained by the laws of motion; it is the law of color: which, and should always remain, something strange. Where our consciousness recognizes the two inherent differences phenomena; in which we are sensitive to a distinction that is not only degree, and feels that no addition of one of these phenomena will itself produce another; any theory that tries to bring good under other laws must be wrong; although a theory that treats only one as another cause or condition may be true.
Biologist T.H. Huxley wrote in 1868:
But what consciousness is, we do not know; and how anything so extraordinary as a state of consciousness arises as a result of an annoying neural network, as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubs his miserly in the story, or like any other natural fact..
The philosopher Thomas Nagel argues in 1974:
If physicality is to be maintained, phenomenological features must be given a physical account. But when we examine their subjective characters it seems the result is not possible. The reason is that every subjective phenomenon is fundamentally connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that a goal, physical theory will leave that point of view.
Maps Hard problem of consciousness
Relationship with a scientific framework
Conscious nerve correlation
Since 1990, researchers including molecular biologist Francis Crick and neurologist Christof Koch have made significant progress to identify the neurobiological events that coincide with the experience of subjective consciousness. These postulated events are referred to as neural correlates of consciousness or NCCs. However, this study arguably answers the question of which neurobiological mechanisms are associated with consciousness but not the question why they should generate awareness at all, the latter being a difficult matter of consciousness when Chalmers formulates it. In "On the Search for Awareness of Neural Awareness", Chalmers says he believes that, given the principle that something like what he calls global availability can be used as an indicator of consciousness, neural correlations will be found "in the century or two". Nevertheless, he states of their relationship to the difficult problem of consciousness:
One can always ask why this process of availability should lead to awareness in the first place. Until now we can not explain why they did it, and it's possible that full details of the availability process will still fail to answer this question. Of course, nothing in the standard methodology I explain answers the question; the methodology assumes the relationship between availability and awareness, and therefore does not explain anything. [...] So the difficult problem persists. But who knows: Somewhere along the line we can be directed to the relevant insights that show why the link is there, and the difficult problem can be solved.
Neurologist and Nobel laureate Eric Kandel writes that placing the NCC will not solve difficult problems, but one that is called a difficult problem that is difficult to compromise. Kandel goes on to note Crick and Koch's suggestion that once the binding issue - understanding what explains the unity of experience - is solved, it will be possible to solve the difficult problem empirically. However, neuroscientist Anil Seth argues that the emphasis on so-called difficult problems is a distraction from what he calls the "real problem": understanding the underlying neurobiology of consciousness, the neural correlation of the various conscious processes. This simpler goal is the focus of most scientists working on consciousness. Psychologist Susan Blackmore believes, on the contrary, that the search for the neural correlation of consciousness is futile and is itself based on false beliefs in the matter of violent consciousness.
Integrated information theory
The Integrated Information Theory (IIT), developed by neurologist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi in 2004 and recently also supported by Koch, is one of the most widely discussed consciousness models in neuroscience and elsewhere. This theory proposes an identity between integrated consciousness and information, with the last item (denoted as?) Is defined mathematically and thus in principle can be measured. The difficult problem of consciousness, writes Tononi and Koch, may indeed be difficult when working from material to consciousness. However, since IIT reverses this relationship and works from phenomenological axioms to problems, they say it can solve difficult problems. In this case, proponents say that the theory goes beyond the identification of human correlation and can be extrapolated to all physical systems. Tononi writes (along with two colleagues):
While identifying the "neural correlation of consciousness" is undoubtedly important, it is difficult to see how it can lead to a satisfactory explanation of what awareness and how it occurs. As will be illustrated below, the IIT offers a way to analyze system mechanisms to determine if they are structured correctly to generate awareness, how much, and which of these types.
As part of the wider criticism of IIT, Michael Cerullo suggested that the proposed explanation of the actual theory for what he spent (following Scott Aaronson) "Difficult Issues Enough" methodically summed up a conscious physical system - but would not solve Chalmers' difficult problems. "Even if the IIT is right," he argues, "it does not explain why integrated information produces (or is) consciousness."
Responses
Awareness is fundamental or elusive
Some philosophers, including David Chalmers in the late 20th century and Alfred North Whitehead in the early 1900s, argue that the conscious experience is the fundamental constituent of the universe, a form of panpsychism sometimes referred to as panexperientialism. Chalmers argues that "rich inner life" can not logically be reduced to the functional nature of physical processes. He states that consciousness must be explained using nonphysical means. This description involves a basic material capable of explaining unexplained phenomena using physical means. The use of these fundamental properties, Chalmers argues, is necessary to explain certain world functions, such as other fundamental features, such as mass and time, and to explain important principles in nature.
The philosopher Thomas Nagel argued in 1974 that experience is essentially subjective (accessible only to the individuals who live it), whereas the physical state is essentially objective (accessible to many individuals). So at this stage, he argues, we do not know what it can even mean to claim that the subjective state is basically just a substantially inferior state. In other words, we have no idea of ​​what the actual amount of reductivism is.
New mystery, like the philosophy of Colin McGinn, proposes that the human mind, in its present form, will not be able to explain consciousness.
Deflation account
Some philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett and Peter Hacker, oppose the idea that there is a difficult problem. These theorists argue that once we truly understand consciousness, we will realize that the difficult problem is not real. For example, Dennett asserts that so-called difficult problems will be solved in the process of answering the "easy" question (which, as he has explained, he does not consider "easy" at all). Unlike Chalmers, he argues that consciousness is not a fundamental feature of the universe and will eventually be fully explained by natural phenomena. Instead of involving the nonphysical, he says, consciousness only plays a trick on people to appear nonphysical - in other words, it seems to require nonphysical features to account for its strength. In this way, Dennet compares his consciousness with stage magic and his ability to create incredible illusions of ordinary things.
To show how people in general can be fooled into exaggerating the power of consciousness, Dennett describes a normal phenomenon called the change of blindness, a visual process involving the failure to detect a change of scenery in a series of alternating images. He uses this concept to argue that the excessive estimation of the brain's visual processing implies that the conception of our consciousness may not seep as we wish. He claims that mistakes make the consciousness more mysterious than it can be a step in every development toward an effective explanatory theory. Critics such as Galen Strawson replied that, in the case of consciousness, even the wrong experiences retained the essential face of the experience that needs to be explained, Dennett's cons.
To answer questions about difficult problems, or how and why physical processes lead to experience, Dennett states that the phenomenon has no more experience than the performance of a function or the production of behavior, which can also be called an easy problem of consciousness. He states that consciousness itself is driven only by these functions, and to remove it will remove the ability to identify thoughts, feelings, and consciousness altogether. So, unlike Chalmers and other dualists, Dennett says that easy problems and difficult problems can not be separated from each other. For him, the difficult problems of experience are included in - not separated from - easy problems, and therefore they can only be described together as cohesive units.
Like Dennett, Hacker argues that difficult issues are essentially incoherent and that "consciousness study", as it exists today, "is really a waste of time":
The whole effort of the consciousness community did not make sense - they chased a chimera. They misunderstand the nature of consciousness. The conception of consciousness that they have is not coherent. The question they asked made no sense. They should go back to the drawing board and start all over again.
Critics of the Dennett approach, such as Chalmers and Nagel, argue that Dennett's argument misses the point of inquiry only by redefining consciousness as an external property and ignoring the subjective aspects completely. This has caused critics to refer to Dennett's book Awareness Explained as Awakened Consciousness or Awareness Explained Far . Dennett discusses this at the end of his book with the section titled Consciousness Explained or Explained?
Although the most common argument against account of deflation and eliminative materialism is the argument of qualia and the argument that conscious experience can not be reduced to a physical state - or that the current "physical" general definition is incomplete - the objection follows that one and the same reality can arise with different ways, and that the numerical differences of these ways are consistent with the unity mode of existence of reality. Critics of the deflation approach state that qualia is a case in which a single reality can not have multiple appearances. For example, the philosopher John Searle points out: "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of apparition is reality".
The famous deflation account is a high-level consciousness theory. In 2005, the philosopher Peter Carruthers wrote of "the concept of recognized experience", that is, "the capacity to recognize [the] type of experience when it occurs in one's own mental life," and suggests that such capacity does not depend on qualia.
The philosophers Glenn Carruthers and Elizabeth Schier say in 2012 that the main argument for the existence of difficult problems - philosophical zombies, Mary's rooms, and Nagel bats - is only persuasive if one already assumes that "consciousness must be independent of structure." and the functioning of the mental state, that is, there is a difficult problem. "Therefore, the argument asks the question The authors suggest that" instead of allowing our conclusions on mind experiments to guide our consciousness theory, we must let our consciousness theory guide our conclusions from thought experiment ".
In 2013, the philosopher Elizabeth Irvine pointed out that folk science and psychology do not treat the mental state as having a phenomenal nature, and therefore "the difficult problem of consciousness may not be a genuine problem for non-philosophers (apart from its overwhelming coercion for philosophers) and the question of consciousness may be 'destroyed' into more specific questions about a given capacity.
The philosopher Massimo Pigliucci distance himself from eliminativism, but he says in 2013 that the difficult problem is still misguided, due to the "category error":
Of course the explanation is not the same as experience, but that is because both are completely independent categories, such as colors and triangles. It is clear that I can not experience what it's like to be you, but I can have a full explanation of how and why it might be you.
Illusion source
A complete reductionist or mechanistic awareness theory must include a description of the mechanism by which the subjective aspects of consciousness are perceived and reported by people. Philosophers like Chalmers or Nagel have rejected the reductionist theory of consciousness because they believe that the subjective experience report is a vast and important empirical body of evidence that is ignored by the modern theory of reductionist consciousness.
Dennett argues that solving the easy problem of consciousness, ie figuring out how the brain works, will ultimately lead to the solution of the difficult problem of consciousness. In particular, the solution can be achieved by identifying the neurological stimuli and pathways whose operations produce evidence of subjective experience.
Neuroscientist Michael Graziano, in his book Social Awareness and Brain, supports what he calls the theory of attention schemes, where our perception of being conscious is merely a mistake in perception, held by a brain that evolves to withstand errors and models which are incomplete from their own internal workings, just as they keep a false and incomplete model of their own bodies and the outside world.
Cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, in his book 2014
Once our intuition is educated by cognitive neuroscience and computer simulation, the difficult problem Chalmers will evaporate. The hypothetical concept of qualia, pure mental experience, regardless of any information processing role, will be seen as a unique idea of ​​the prescientific era, such as vitalism... [Just as science sends vitalism] the conscious science will continue to eat away from the tough problem of consciousness until it is lost.
See also
References
External links
- Weisberg, Josh. "A difficult problem of conscience". Encyclopedia of Internet Philosophy .
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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