scholarly journals The Quest to Solve Problems That Don’t Exist: Thought Artifacts in Contemporary Ontology

Studia Humana ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernardo Kastrup
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Semantic Paradoxes ◽  
Philosophy Today ◽  
Combination Problem ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Hard Problem

Abstract Questions about the nature of reality and consciousness remain unresolved in philosophy today, but not for lack of hypotheses. Ontologies as varied as physicalism, microexperientialism and cosmopsychism enrich the philosophical menu. Each of these ontologies faces a seemingly fundamental problem: under physicalism, for instance, we have the ‘hard problem of consciousness,’ whereas under microexperientialism we have the ‘subject combination problem.’ I argue that these problems are thought artifacts, having no grounding in empirical reality. In a manner akin to semantic paradoxes, they exist only in the internal logico-conceptual structure of their respective ontologies.

Language and the School Child

1964 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Joos
Keyword(s):  
Civil Engineer ◽  
School Child ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Complicated Problem ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Hard Problem

The trouble was arithmetic and grammar. My thick skull for mathematics was a source of humiliation. For a year or two I slaved over the subject. As a spur I announced my intention of becoming a civil engineer. The results of these efforts were peculiar. Occasionally I would come up with the solution of a complicated problem—and then miss a string of simple ones. This created suspicions that I had been helped with the hard problem. So, in the end, I just gave up mathematics.

scholarly journals A Compositional Model of Consciousness Based on Consciousness-Only

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 308
Author(s):  
Camilo Miguel Signorelli ◽  
Quanlong Wang ◽  
Ilyas Khan
Keyword(s):  
Hard Problem ◽  
Compositional Model ◽  
Closed Category ◽  
Combination Problem ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
Conscious Processes

Scientific studies of consciousness rely on objects whose existence is assumed to be independent of any consciousness. On the contrary, we assume consciousness to be fundamental, and that one of the main features of consciousness is characterized as being other-dependent. We set up a framework which naturally subsumes this feature by defining a compact closed category where morphisms represent conscious processes. These morphisms are a composition of a set of generators, each being specified by their relations with other generators, and therefore co-dependent. The framework is general enough and fits well into a compositional model of consciousness. Interestingly, we also show how our proposal may become a step towards avoiding the hard problem of consciousness, and thereby address the combination problem of conscious experiences.

scholarly journals The Hard Terminological Problem of Consciousness

Studia Humana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
Alexander Boldachev
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Body ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Consciousness Level ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Hard Problem

Abstract This article demonstrates that certain issues of philosophy of mind can only be explained via strict observance of the logical law of identity, that is, use of the term “consciousness” in only one meaning. Based on the understanding of consciousness as space in which objects distinguished by the subject are represented, this article considers problems such as the fixation of the consciousness level, correlation between consciousness and thought, between the internal and the external, and between consciousness and the body. It demonstrates the insufficiency of the reactive conception of action for the resolution of the hard problem of consciousness and the necessity of a transition to an active paradigm in which many issues in philosophy of mind would be formulated differently.

A Solution to the Combination Problem and the Future of Panpsychism

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (9) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
A. Harris
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Scientific Question ◽  
Combination Problem ◽  
The Future ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Universe

This paper supports the scientific position that panpsychism is a valid category of possible resolutions to the hard problem of consciousness, and it focuses on a solution to the 'combination problem' in panpsychism. I argue for a new way of thinking about consciousness in which consciousness is not viewed in reference to subjects, and that the concept of a 'subject' is borne of the illusion of self. Therefore, we don't face a combination problem if the notion of a subject is superfluous and consciousness itself is pervasive in the form of a field. The paper is also a more general discussion about the importance of pursuing this scientific question in the twenty-first century: is consciousness a more fundamental aspect of the universe than we have previously assumed?

Panpsychism versus Panprotopsychism and the Subject-Summing Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Goff
Keyword(s):  
Macro Level ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Combination Problem ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Russellian Monism ◽  
Nature Of Matter

This is the first of two chapters discussing the most notorious problem facing Russellian monism: the combination problem. This is actually a family of difficulties, each reflecting the challenge of how to make sense of everyday human and animal experience intelligibly arising from more fundamental conscious or protoconscious features of reality. Key challenges facing panpsychist and panpsychist forms of Russellian monism are considered. With respect to panprotopsychism, there is the worry that it collapses into noumenalism: the view that human beings, by their very nature, are unable to understand the concrete, categorical nature of matter. With respect to panpsychism, there is the subject-summing problem: the difficulty making sense of how micro-level conscious subjects combine to produce macro-level conscious subjects. A solution to the subject-summing problem is proposed, and it is ultimately argued that panpsychist forms of the Russellian monism are to be preferred on grounds of simplicity and elegance.

Zombies and Dolls

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcello Massimini ◽  
Giulio Tononi
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter uses thought experiments and practical examples to introduce, in a very accessible way, the hard problem of consciousness. Soon, machines may behave like us to pass the Turing test and scientists may succeed in copying and simulating the inner workings of the brain. Will all this take us any closer to solving the mysteries of consciousness? The reader is taken to meet different kind of zombies, the philosophical, the digital, and the inner ones, to understand why many, scientists and philosophers alike, doubt that the mind–body problem will ever be solved.

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