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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem

Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem

Shear, Jonathan

Paperback

PhilosophyAnatomy & PhysiologyGeneral Psychology

ISBN10: 026269221X
ISBN13: 9780262692212
Publisher: Bradford Book
Published: Jan 22 1999
Pages: 430
Weight: 1.90
Height: 0.92 Width: 7.00 Depth: 9.86
Language: English
Why doesn't all this cognitive processing go on in the dark, without any consciousness at all? In this book philosophers, physicists, psychologists, neurophysiologists, computer scientists, and others address this central topic in the growing discipline of consciousness studies.

At the 1994 landmark conference Toward a Scientific Basis for Consciousness, philosopher David Chalmers distinguished between the easy problems and the hard problem of consciousness research. According to Chalmers, the easy problems are to explain cognitive functions such as discrimination, integration, and the control of behavior; the hard problem is to explain why these functions should be associated with phenomenal experience. Why doesnt all this cognitive processing go on in the dark, without any consciousness at all? In this book, philosophers, physicists, psychologists, neurophysiologists, computer scientists, and others address this central topic in the growing discipline of consciousness studies. Some take issue with Chalmers' distinction, arguing that the hard problem is a non-problem, or that the explanatory gap is too wide to be bridged. Others offer alternative suggestions as to how the problem might be solved, whether through cognitive science, fundamental physics, empirical phenomenology, or with theories that take consciousness as irreducible.

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