Greg Detre
Tuesday, 19 March, 2002
see C:\greg\academic\reading\phil\topics\mind\Facing
Up to the Problem of Consciousness.htm
see
Moving forward on the problem of consciousness
�an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state�
proposes a nonreductive theory based on principles of structural coherence and organizational invariance and a double-aspect view of information
�reserve the term �consciousness� for the phenomena of experience, using the less loaded term �awareness� for the more straightforward phenomena [easy problems]�
easy problems of consciousness = those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science (whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms)
e.g.
� the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli
� the integration of information by a cognitive system
� the reportability of mental states
� the ability of a system to access its own internal states
� the focus of attention
� the deliberate control of behavior
� the difference between wakefulness and sleep
�we have a clear idea of how we might go about explaining them� though it �will probably take a century or two of difficult empirical work� but �there is every reason to believe that the methods of cognitive science and neuroscience will succeed�
hard problems = those that seem to resist those methods
�the really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience�, the subjective aspect that accompanies the whir of information-processing
�why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C?�
�it is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises�
considers how writers often start by noting the �strange intangibility and ineffability of subjectivity� (the hard problem) but end �a theory of one of the more straightforward phenomena - of reportability, of introspective access, or whatever� � �the reader is left feeling like the victim of a bait-and-switch�
Why are the easy problems easy, and why is the hard problem hard? The easy problems are easy precisely because they concern the explanation of cognitive abilities and functions. To explain a cognitive function, we need only specify a mechanism that can perform the function. The methods of cognitive science are well-suited for this sort of explanation, and so are well-suited to the easy problems of consciousness. By contrast, the hard problem is hard precisely because it is not a problem about the performance of functions. The problem persists even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained. (Here "function" is not used in the narrow teleological sense of something that a system is designed to do, but in the broader sense of any causal role in the production of behavior that a system might perform.)
could you divide the easy and hard problems up according to whether or not they can be reduced/analysed???