The Hard Problem of Consciousness

the Hard Problem is found to hold firm arguments contra EvNS, this would argue for its veracity and underpin an interesting discourse – and if not, the opposite is true.

Nothing in science as a whole has been more firmly established by interwoven factual information. Nothing has been more illuminating than the universal occurrence of biological evolution. Furthermore, few natural processes have been more convincingly explained than evolution by the theory of natural selection. (Wilson, 2009) CHALMERS’S VIEW AGAINST A DARWINIAN FRAMEWORK – Review of Literature EvNS is widely accepted but Chalmers’s Hard Problem makes a specific claim against EvNS in the formation of human consciousness. He dismisses it as having any place in the development of consciousness claiming the ‘process of natural selection cannot distinguish between me and my zombie twin. [EvNS] selects properties according to their functional role, and my zombie twin performs all functions I perform just as well’ (emphasis added, Chalmers, 1996, pp.

120-21). A zombie is defined earlier as ‘physically identical to me . . . molecule for molecule . . . but lacking conscious experiences altogether . . . all is dark inside . . . empirically impossible’ (ibid., pp. 94, 96), thus setting-up a ‘zombie twin versus David Chalmers’ functional thought experiment.

Chalmers offers this functional-but-fictional account of his own consciousness to initiate a contra-scientific view developed throughout his book. The above notes are the only express comments he offers on EvNS. He gives no other detail or outside references, but lays out this ‘zombie trope’ and proceeds from there. Chalmers is not alone in using zombie-like devices to portray problems of consciousness (Kirk, 2012, Deacon, 2011), so this ‘zombie’ may be a useful trope. Still, Chalmers’s use of zombies here to rebut EvNS is singular in the literature. Also, this ‘empirically impossible’ zombie rebuttal of EvNS collides with a prior claim to not ‘dispute current scientific theories in domains where they have authority’ and to ‘take consciousness to be a natural phenomenon . . . under the sway of natural laws’ (Chalmers, 1996., p. xiii). Thus, early on, self-contradictory positions begin to arise in his volume.

Chalmers’s (1996) sparse comments on EvNS prompt further study of his volume for more detail. With no other notes on EvNS found therein, perhaps exploring the functional view he poses against EvNS can help. ‘Functionality’ arises early on, in Chapter 1.2, where Chalmers ties phenomenal events to ‘subjective conscious experience’, and ties ensuing psychological views of phenomenal events to ‘functionalism and cognitive science’. He then ponders ‘whether the phenomenal and psychological will turn out to be the same [practical] thing’ (ibid., p. 12). For example, in jointly considering phenomenal and psychological roles he names many likely coadaptive functions (e.g., pain, emotions, etc.).

Chalmers states that ‘the co-occurrence of phenomenal and psychological properties reflects something deep about our phenomenal concepts’ of consciousness and that it is practical ‘to say that together, the psychological and the phenomenal exhaust the mental . . . there is no third kind of manifest explanandum’ (ibid., p. 22). He plainly accepts causal/functional relations between the phenomenal and the psychological (ibid., pp. 13, 16-17, 21-22), thus implying a likely role for EvNS (i.e., selection for synchronous functioning of phenomenal sensory input, and efficient psychological views of that input). But soon after, Chalmers oddly insists on holding the two, the