Is the Hard Problem Really So Hard?
They call it the hard problem of consciousness, but a better term might be the impossible problem of consciousness. The whole point is that the qualitative aspects of our conscious experience, or “qualia,” are inexplicable. They slip through the explanatory framework of science, which is reductive: It explains things by breaking them down into parts and describing how they fit together. Subjective experience has an intrinsic je ne sais quoi that can’t be decomposed into parts or explained by relating one thing to another. Qualia can’t be grasped intellectually. They can only be experienced firsthand.
For the past five years or so, I’ve been trying to untangle the cluster of theories that attempt to explain consciousness, traveling the world to interview neuroscientists, philosophers, artificial-intelligence researchers, and physicists—all of whom have something to say on the matter. Most duck the hard problem, either bracketing it until neuroscientists explain brain function more fully or accepting that consciousness has no deeper explanation and must be wired into the.
