Knowra Hard problem of consciousness Hard problem of consciousness The hard problem of consciousness asks why and how physical processes give rise to subjective experience, such as what it feels like to see red or feel pain.
Explanatory gap : The apparent gap between physical descriptions of processes and explanations of subjective experience. It names the central difficulty the hard problem is meant to capture.
Functionalism : The view that mental states are defined by the causal roles they play rather than by their material composition. Functional accounts explain mental roles, while the hard problem asks whether those roles explain experience.
David Chalmers : An Australian philosopher known for work on consciousness, language, and the foundations of cognitive science. He named and influentially formulated the hard problem in the 1990s.
Phenomenal consciousness : Consciousness understood as the subjective, felt character of experience. This is the kind of consciousness at the center of the hard problem.
Hard problem of consciousness and the easy problems : The tractable questions about explaining cognitive functions such as attention, report, and discrimination. The contrast marks which explanatory targets Chalmers thinks do not settle subjective experience.
Qualia : The felt qualities of conscious experiences, such as the painfulness of pain or the appearance of red. Qualia are the subjective features whose existence makes the problem hard.
Identity theory : The view that mental states are identical to physical states of the brain. Identifying experience with brain states may appear to state a fact without explaining why it feels a certain way.
Thomas Nagel : An American philosopher whose work examines mind, ethics, and the limits of objective understanding. His essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” foregrounded subjective character decades earlier.
Access consciousness : The availability of information for reasoning, verbal report, and control of action. Explaining cognitive access is often treated as easier than explaining felt experience.
Integrated information theory : A theory proposing that consciousness corresponds to integrated information within a system. It offers a quantitative account of consciousness, while its link to felt experience remains disputed.
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