A simple perspective on the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Question

Easy problems

• Does neural activity cause consciousness?

We explain how magnets interact in terms of magnetic fields. We make a mathematical model that makes testable predictions and includes a notion of causality. Similarly, we will explain the easy problems, associated to overt behaviour (a public property) and it's cause in neurological mechanisms.

Hard problem

• What about the subjective, private experience?

Taking as a fact that we have subjective experience, then one could postulate that the inner experience is an emergent phenomena. Sean Carroll says here (from 0:34 onwards) "[consciousness] It is one of these emergent phenomena (...)". He probably means weak emergence.

Note that we can't ever know someone's exact inner experience. But that's how we carry out science anyways.

When someone says "it's a blue sky", is it identical to our experience? This assumption of shared reality is just as present in standard scientific practice.

In the same way, we will trust those descriptions, and create a theory that explains the appearance and the subjective experience, as strongly emergent phenomenon or as a new kind of fundamental substance.

Summarising: inner experience exists, it is caused by neural activity, and we will have a mathematical model, but since it involves a new kind of substance, it may need modifications to what kinds of entities are fundamental.

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Zombies

We can't fully show though, that others aren't zombies, but we will work with that assumption.(see previous section.)

Conclusions

• Consciousness exists (others could be zombies, but most likely aren't.)
• We will then expect a theory of the emergence of consciousness, from NCCs most likely, but ontologically it is a different kind of entity.
• We will use standard inter-subjectivity for 'base experience': people's behaviours, verbal accounts and its cause by NCCs. Note we already work with this assumption when doing science.

Question

Does this reasoning have logical flaws that you'd point out ? Is it similar to any other theory out there ?

Answer 1

Here are several corrections for you:

• No observation is ever 3rd person. All our observation is first person, and subjective. We seek to harden against our personal biases by asking for other's subjective confirmations, seeking an intersubjective consensus. This does not ever quite get to 3rd person.
• Physicalists say consciousness IS neurology, not that neurology causes it. It is an Identity Theory claim. There are problems with such an identity claim:
• a) there is a large character difference between consciousness and neural activity, there is therefore a huge burden of credibility on this claim
• b) 99+% of our neural activity is unconscious, including at times basically everything we do consciously. The identity claim is therefore apparently refuted, as consciousness does not appear in most cases when we do neural processing.
• Neurology causing consciousness -- is emergent dualism, not physicalism.
• The hard problem of consciousness is that, under either physicalism, or non-causal emergent dualism (epiphenomenalism), evolutionary processes of random mutations should lead to change of properties of consciousness -- ultimately leading to consciousness decoupling from behavior, or disappearing altogether. We can only have maintained consciousness under variance if consciousness is itself causal.
• Yes, emergent causal dualism is a solution to the hard problem of consciousness. This is the solution Karl Popper proposed.

Answer 2

1. It has been tested by neuroscience that rodents as well as humans navigate on the basis of mental maps through their ambient space. Therefore it is convincing to explain conscious experience and activity by neural activity in the brain.

2. Smart test arrangements allow to observe via brain scans that the the activity in specialized cells and cell complexes is synchronous with the movement in space. These experiments were conducted with rodents and their actual or remembered movement in space. And with the imagined movement of human probands while measuring the brain activity via fMRI, see Christian F. Doeller.

3. These experiments clearly show that observable behaviour is synchronous with specific brain activities. The latter has been experienced by the human probands as a conscious activity.

   In the light of current neuroscientific research, speculative thoughts about zombies seem a bit artificial therefore.

Added as summary in reply to your comment:

• ad your question 1. Does neural activity cause consciousness? - Yes. See ongoing work from neuroscience about NCC.

• ad your question 2. We can't ever know someone's exact inner experience. - I object: See the ongoing work with brain scans to relate conscious experience from first person’s report and brain activity measured from third person’s perspective.

• ad your question 3. We can't prove though, that others aren't zombies, but we will work with that assumption. - How do you define zombie? Why is the concept important for research about consciousness?

Answer 3

Edit: This answer is rewritten due to extensive editing of the original question.

Your question: Does this reasoning have logical flaws that you'd point out ?

we will explain the easy problems, associated to overt behaviour (a public property) and it's (sic) cause in neurological mechanisms.

This sentence is not clear. Are the easy problems having a cause in neurological mechanisms, or is the overt behavior having a cause in neurological mechanisms? Either suggestion seems to reverse cause and effect. Since no explanation is forthcoming, I assume that 'we will explain' refers to a hitherto unmentioned philosophical program.

Note that we can't ever know someone's exact inner experience. But that's how we carry out science anyways.

This is a non sequitur. The scientific program is not carried out on the basis of scientists' exact inner experiences, unless these experiences are the subject of the research. When chemists perform experiments in spectrophotometry to establish the colour, they will measure the wavelength and these measurements are objective and replicable. That these measurements correlate with our subjective experiences is nice and helps scientists to communicate (cobalt blue means something), but the measurements could theoretically just as well be done by a philosophical zombie. The research would be indistinguishable and happily accepted and published.

When someone says "it's a blue sky", is it identical to our experience? This assumption of shared reality is just as present in standard scientific practice.

Yes, you can't prevent scientists from heaving subjective experiences. These experiences are, however, irrelevant for the outcome of scientific practice. If the outcome of a scientific experiment would depend on the subjective experience of the scientist (cobalt blue-ish) then it would be bad science.

we will trust those descriptions, and create a theory that explains the appearance and the subjective experience, as strongly emergent phenomenon or as a new kind of fundamental substance.

What you describe here is bad science. This sounds like auras, chakras and the like, phenomena that are firmly in the domain of pseudoscience. Strong emergence is controversial and in my opinion (yes, this is subjective, ha!) adjacent to magical thinking.

Summarising: inner experience exists, it is caused by neural activity,

Despite my critique on this discourse, I agree with this statement.

since it involves a new kind of substance,

An unsubstantiated and fact-free assumption that brings us straight back to unadulterated dualism.

Your first conclusion is that consciousness exists, but some (of us) could be zombies. This seems irrefutable and is in fact a well established idea since Descartes. Though, I don't recall Descartes mentioning zombies. This is more a reassertion of what was written above.

Your second conclusion is that consciousness likely emerges from a neural correlate of consiousness. Maybe. And it is ontologically not the same.

I take it that your third conclusion asserts that neural correlates of consciousness cause behaviour of which we are conscious and that this hopes to be an answer to the preambule: Does neural activity cause consciousness? I don't think this necessarily follows. Mind you, I do think that consciousness is caused by neural activity, but it is called neural correlate of consciousness for a reason. Correlation is not causation. Neurological activity is detected in patients under general anaestesia. These patients, one hopes, are not conscious. In another answer, the documented navigation skills of rodents and humans were correlated with brain activity. The subjects (the humans at least) reported subjective experience. I would, however, like to draw attention to the phenomenon of sleepwalking. People who sleepwalk show navigation skills but seem to be unresponsive and have often no recollection of their whereabouts during their nocturnal sojourns. In these cases they do not report subjective experience. In fact, they are often very much surprised with their exploits. There are cases of people sleepwalking that involve the subject driving a car.

So far, or at least as of last year, it appears that the neural correlate of consciousnes has not yet been found.