On The Infinitely Hard Problem Of Consciousness
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (2):211-228 (2011)
| Abstract | I show that the recursive structure of Leibniz's Law requires agents to perform infinitely many operations to psychologically identify the referents of phenomenal and physical concepts, even though the referents of ordinary concepts (e.g. Hesperus and Phosphorus) can be identified in a finite number of steps. The resulting problem resembles the hard problem of consciousness in the fact that it appears (and indeed is) unsolvable by anyone for whom it arises, and in the fact that it invites dualist and eliminativist responses. Moreover, if this is the hard problem then we can predict that regardless of the strength of the argument for physicalism, and regardless of physicalism's truth, an ineliminable dissatisfaction is bound to accompany any physicalist theory of consciousness. Accordingly, I suggest that this is the hard problem of consciousness, and therefore that the hard problem arises from a recursively degenerate application of Leibniz's Law | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesAlex Byrne (2006). Color and the Mind-Body Problem. Dialectica 60 (2):223-44.
Jonathan Shear (1996). The Hard Problem: Closing the Empirical Gap. Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (1):54-68.
Gregg H. Rosenberg (1996). Rethinking Nature: A Hard Problem Within the Hard Problem. Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (1):76-88.
Kieron O'Hara & Tom Scutt (1996). There is No Hard Problem of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (4):290-302.
Eugene O. Mills (1996). Giving Up on the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (1):26-32.
Greg P. Hodes (2005). What Would It "Be Like" to Solve the Hard Problem?: Cognition, Consciousness, and Qualia Zombies. Neuroquantology 3 (1):43-58.
Martina Fürst (2011). What Mary's Aboutness Is About. Acta Analytica 26 (1):63-74.
Piotr Boltuc (2009). The Philosophical Issue in Machine Consciousness. International Journal of Machine Consciousness 1 (01):155-176.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-08-10Total downloads131 ( #3,471 of 549,037 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,706 of 549,037 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
