Volume 3 No 1 (2005)
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What Would It „Be Like‰ to Solve the „Hard Problem‰ Cognition, Consciousness, and Qualia-Zombies
Greg P. Hodes*1
Abstract
David Chalmers argues that consciousness - authentic, first-person, conscious
consciousness - cannot be reduced to brain events or to any physical event,
and that efforts to find a workable mind-body identity theory are, therefore,
doomed in principle. But for Chalmers and non-reductionist in general
consciousness consists exclusively, or at least paradigmatically, of phenomenal
or qualia-consciousness. This results in a seriously inadequate understanding
both of consciousness and of the „hard problem.‰ I describe other,
higher-order cognitional events which must be conscious if the „hard
problem‰ is to be solved -- in any sense of ÂsolveÊ which would make us any
the wiser about it -- but whose consciousness is quite different from the
qualia and phenomena usually inventoried. Events of this kind are both part of
the hard problem and the means by which we will solve it, if we ever do.
Keywords
consciousness, hard problem, cognition, Key Words Chalmers, Lonergan
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