Is the hard problem of consciousness really an issue about its operationalization?

Question

Consider the following:

S1: The assumption that “the chair has certain affordances (weathered, rickety, sturdy, available, etc.)” is a non-arbitrary subroutine in an operant or respondent activity (sitting, avoiding sitting, using as an improvised ladder/a shelf, hanging my coat, burning for heat, etc.) that couples an agent x to the (chair).

S2: The assumption that “the patient has advanced artery disease” is a non-arbitrary subroutine in an operant or respondent activity (the administration of statin, nitro-glycerine, ACE inhibitors, advice about radical dietary changes, etc.) that couples the surgeon x to the (patient’s heart/cardiovascular system).

S3: The assumption that “consciousness has the property P (physicality, non-physicality, non- localness, universally distributed, etc.)” is a non-arbitrary subroutine in an operant or respondent activity that couples an agent x to the (phenomena of consciousness).

There’s obviously nothing controversial about S1 and S2. But, the glaring issue about S3 is precisely what ‘activity’ or ‘operation’ are we talking about here? What is it that you couldn’t actually do (and not just talk about doing) if you weren’t working with the assumption that “consciousness has whatever property P”?

Answer 1

The hard problem of consciousness is not a question of "consciousness has the property P" so much as it is a question of why do we experience P as P.

For instance if you see the color red, or taste bacon, you have the qualia of such experiences. So Consciousness has the quality red (or the taste of bacon) in those cases. This is not the question that the hard problem of consciousness is seeking to answer however.

Let us disregard for a moment the inverted qualia argument/thought experiment, as interesting as the topic is, and let us say we are both staring at a patch of red paint, and chewing on bacon.

There is nothing controversial about the sentences: "I see red" and "I taste bacon" as we point to our mouths with one hand and the patch of paint with the other.

The hard problem of consciousness is WHY we experience red as red, and not some other color, and WHY we experience the taste of bacon when we chew it, and not, let us say, chocolate. Or why we experience anything at all because of the physical state of our brains? How do we go from a physical combination of things to an experience of red, or bacon, or any other qualia?

So no, the hard problem of consciousness is not a question of Operationalization, but a question of explanation.

Consider this quote by Chalmers from this article

What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? (1995, 202, emphasis in original).

There are many other formulations of the hard problem of consciousness.

To hear David Chalmers himself talk about Consciousness in a TED talk that is only 1 year old (yes he is still alive) click here

You'll see that some approaches to the hard problem of consciousness are to deny that there is a problem at all. Some do this by denying the existence of qualia. Some do this in other ways.

Those who accept it as a problem are still scratching their heads. The individual that comes forward with the solution to this problem will likely become quite famous.