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The Conscious Mind
The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory was published in 1996, and is the first book written by David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher specialising in philosophy of mind. Although the book has been greatly influential, Chalmers maintains that it is "far from perfect", as most of it was written as part of his PhD dissertation after "studying philosophy for only four years".
In The Conscious Mind, Chalmers argues that (1) the physical does not exhaust the actual, so materialism is false; (2) consciousness is a fundamental fact of nature; (3) science and philosophy should strive towards discovering a fundamental law of consciousness.
Every mental state can be described in psychological terms, phenomenological terms, or both.
Psychological and phenomenal consciousness are often conflated. Thinkers may purport to have solved consciousness (in the phenomenological sense) when really all they have solved are certain aspects of psychological consciousness. To use Chalmers words: they claim to have solved the "hard problem of consciousness", when really all they have solved are certain "easy problems of consciousness".
Chalmers believes that an adequate theory of consciousness can only come by solving both the hard and easy problems. On top of discovering brain states associated with conscious experience, science must also discover why and how certain brain states are accompanied by experience. This is what Chalmers attempts to do in The Conscious Mind.
The hard problem is hard, by Chalmers' account, because conscious experience is irreducible to lower-order physical facts. He supports this conclusion with three main lines of argument, which are summarised below.
The conclusion of all these arguments is the same: consciousness is irreducible to physical facts alone.
The only things that are irreducible to lower-level facts are fundamental laws of nature (e.g., space and time). Since consciousness is irreducible, Chalmers believes that it, too, is fundamental.
The Conscious Mind
The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory was published in 1996, and is the first book written by David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher specialising in philosophy of mind. Although the book has been greatly influential, Chalmers maintains that it is "far from perfect", as most of it was written as part of his PhD dissertation after "studying philosophy for only four years".
In The Conscious Mind, Chalmers argues that (1) the physical does not exhaust the actual, so materialism is false; (2) consciousness is a fundamental fact of nature; (3) science and philosophy should strive towards discovering a fundamental law of consciousness.
Every mental state can be described in psychological terms, phenomenological terms, or both.
Psychological and phenomenal consciousness are often conflated. Thinkers may purport to have solved consciousness (in the phenomenological sense) when really all they have solved are certain aspects of psychological consciousness. To use Chalmers words: they claim to have solved the "hard problem of consciousness", when really all they have solved are certain "easy problems of consciousness".
Chalmers believes that an adequate theory of consciousness can only come by solving both the hard and easy problems. On top of discovering brain states associated with conscious experience, science must also discover why and how certain brain states are accompanied by experience. This is what Chalmers attempts to do in The Conscious Mind.
The hard problem is hard, by Chalmers' account, because conscious experience is irreducible to lower-order physical facts. He supports this conclusion with three main lines of argument, which are summarised below.
The conclusion of all these arguments is the same: consciousness is irreducible to physical facts alone.
The only things that are irreducible to lower-level facts are fundamental laws of nature (e.g., space and time). Since consciousness is irreducible, Chalmers believes that it, too, is fundamental.