Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. David J. Chalmers Department of Philosophy University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 chalmers@arizona.edu [Published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3):200-19, 1995. Also online is my response, "Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness", to 26 articles commenting on this paper. That paper elaborates and extends many of the ideas in this one.] 1 Introduction Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. To make progress on the problem of consciousness, we have to confront it directly. 2 The easy problems and the hard problem There is not just one problem of consciousness.
The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena: All of these phenomena are associated with the notion of consciousness. There is no real issue about whether these phenomena can be explained scientifically. If these phenomena were all there was to consciousness, then consciousness would not be much of a problem. 3 Functional explanation. Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness.
David J. Chalmers Department of Philosophy University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 chalmers@arizona.edu Published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies 4(1):3-46. This paper is a response to the commentaries in the Journal of Consciousness Studies on my paper "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. " The 26 commentaries (with links to online versions when they exist) were by Bernard Baars, Douglas Bilodeau, Patricia Churchland, Tom Clark, C.J.S. I am very grateful to all the contributors to this symposium for their thoughtful comments. When I wrote my paper, I had no idea that it would be subject to such close analysis. Because of the unexpected influence of the "hard problem" formulation, I have occasionally received far more credit than I deserve.
The papers in the symposium are divided fairly evenly into those that take issue with aspects of my analysis, and those that provide positive approaches of their own. The reply has three main parts. 2.1 Deflationary analogies. Humanity’s Next God: You? In a recent article in The Economist, futurist Paul Saffo claims humanity’s overdue for a new god. He points out that throughout history, great new religions took shape during times characterized by uncertainty and social unrest, combined with an ability to spread compelling new ideas and world views virally. And here we are today, he says, equipped with the Web as our communication channel, and a cultural climate bubbling with that same potential for something new to emerge.
The article ends there, with only an image of worshippers gathered around an iPad to suggest where we might be placing our faith next. It was just a prompt, but it’s made me wonder.. is this where we’re headed? If a new zeitgeist were to capture the minds of billions, what might it look like? Perhaps it’s time to advance our collective story. We continue to grow more connected, more informed, more intelligent, and more dangerous. But how much longer can we continue this charade? Can we find a common ground? Like this: Twitter and the Global Brain. Twitter’s Intelligent, Welcome to Web 3.0. “Collective Intelligence (CI) is the capacity of human collectives to engage in intellectual cooperation in order to create, innovate, and invent.” - Pierre Levy + James Surowiecki + Mark Tovey I wrote a post a few days ago, Is Twitter a Complex Adaptive System? , that proposed the idea that Twitter may be evolving into an entity of sorts, a collective intelligence.
I’ve come across some new posts that are amplifying that meme, and I just want to keep the thoughtstream going. Insight #1 I was reading an article by Nova Spivack from 2006 over on Ray Kurzweil’s site, titled The Third-Generation Web is Coming. He also lays out the key technology trends driving the evolution. Sound familiar? Insight #2 Then this article from ReadWriteWeb passed through my tweetstream, The Future is all about Context: The Pragmatic Web. Then she goes into a different direction, talking about business models and Facebook. Insight #3 I then found this article by Dean Pomerleau, titled Twitter and the Global Brain. Metalogue: The Evolution of Mind, Consciousness, and the Web. (this is my final paper for cybernetics class and for graduate school. it is a theoretical metalogue between myself and gregory bateson. many of his phrases and passages are pulled directly from the book Steps To An Ecology of Mind) vm: i want to understand the ecology of mind, how it works.
I want to understand how technology is accelerating intentional evolution, and what the Web is becoming… a collective intelligence? A global mind? A path to destruction? How do you propose i begin? Gb: You certainly are full of questions. vm: Yeah, it’s a curse. Gb: Perhaps, but an exploration of mind and self is a worthy endeavor. Vm: Please explain. gb: We are complex, self-corrective systems. Vm: Yes, that makes sense. Gb: Indeed. Vm: Sounds like a holistic approach. Gb: Well, the meaning of terms like “better” or “worse” are contingent upon whom you ask. Vm: Which are? Vm: Right, like a giant program, maintaining homeostasis via its interrelated subroutines. vm: Sounds dangerous. vm: Wait…. what?