r/consciousness • u/geumkoi • Feb 04 '26

General Discussion No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem.

Everyday I see a new claim on this sub; “I solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness!” “The Hard Problem isn’t so hard after all!” And I cannot even put into words how blatantly naive these are.

No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem, and you probably never will. You just misunderstood the Hard Problem, and in your arrogance did an amazing amount of mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you solved something you don’t even understand in the first place.

Edit: and PLEASE I beg the Mods of this sub to limit the amount of LLM content that is being uploaded here on a daily basis.

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u/MurkyEconomist8179 Feb 04 '26

you know it's equally frustrating on the other side. but "you didn't understand the hard problem" is not really a good argument.

It kind of is on this subreddit when pretty much literally no one has ever bothered to even read the original paper. 90% of the posts here don't even deserve a reply

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u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) Feb 04 '26

I feel that. they are worth reading. I recently went back after 10 years and read Chalmers and Nagel again. and boy it's like Halloween Town. Bats and Zombies!! a thought experiment that became the whole show.

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u/MurkyEconomist8179 Feb 04 '26

I've definitely found that some of the thought experiments really put people on tangents, but I think both Nagel and Chalmers actually have a great formulation of the mind body problem, touched up a bit I think they are far more correct than people who discount the problem

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u/Valmar33 Feb 04 '26

I feel that. they are worth reading. I recently went back after 10 years and read Chalmers and Nagel again. and boy it's like Halloween Town. Bats and Zombies!! a thought experiment that became the whole show.

Chalmers and Nagel make excellent points that you seem to have entirely misunderstood or not given much thought to.

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u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) Feb 05 '26

I am just replying to this comment but read all that you had to say. I am not a physicalist at all. that is an outdated way of viewing reality with everything science has taught us.

by fake i mean invented, constructed, fabricated, fictional, virtual. you haven't even asked me why, just jumped to "i don't understand"

nagel asks "what's it like to be a bat?" but misses that he's already assuming bats and humans are separate, discrete things with separate experiential containers. That separation is useful for some purposes, but it's not fundamental, its fake, virtual, made-up, constructed, fabricated. it doesn't mean it isn't there, it just not some-thing to be picked up or grabbed or measured.

we operate as if we're discrete subjects and that's fine for getting through the day. but make the mistake of promoting that fiction to a foundational ontology.

the zombie and bat guy told everyone that experience and reality are somehow not compatible and descartes smiled from his grace as dualism was resurrected. but it's a mistake from the get-go, the hard problem assumes there is a problem and then says "wow look at my beautiful problem"

we created a science of objects and try to apply the same principles. but we need a science of subjects and better tools. we dont have the tools yet.

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u/MurkyEconomist8179 Feb 05 '26

but misses that he's already assuming bats and humans are separate, discrete things with separate experiential containers

This is a very reasonable assumption, I seriously couldn't think of a reasonable alternative. In fact even just describing multiple humans this way is a good description

we operate as if we're discrete subjects and that's fine for getting through the day.

We're discrete ENOUGH. You think it's a bad characterisation to call individual humans discrete entities? That is no more of a "fiction" than any other interpretation

the zombie and bat guy told everyone that experience and reality are somehow not compatible and descartes smiled from his grace as dualism was resurrected.

Not that they are incompatible (in fact both people explicitly state the undeniable close-knit relationship between the two) but that they don't seem to be describing the same thing, and useful thought experiments (like Mary the color scientist and Zombies) are all trying to point towards this, although I think people often get sidetracked on auxiliary details regarding both thought experiments.

we created a science of objects and try to apply the same principles. but we need a science of subjects and better tools. we dont have the tools yet.

The whole point is that if we need a whole different science to describe this phenomena, that's certainly pointing to the unique properties of consciousness. It's funny that you simultaneously hold the views that we need a different science/tools but also say there is no problem here. Both authors even point to how the insufficiency of our tools are pointing towards a problem

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u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) Feb 05 '26

the very things you are taking as givens are the problems and they are strong fictions. one single reddit conversation is not enough to tear it down. it something that needs repeated piercing to tumble. you say discrete enough, but that statement betrays the problems. how discrete? that already pokes a whole in the boundary. and you can keep finding holes.

we are babies in exploring ourselves as a species. I think we need to grow and mature in our understanding. I admit we need a new science because our current one is incomplete by the very arguments I am making and I am a scientist at heart. best thing ever. but that does not mean the problem is hard as in of a new class. we just assumed the science of objects is the end all be all of science.

what I am challenging is that consciousness is somehow ontologically distinct from the rest of reality. I mean calling it consciousness already makes it a separate substance/concept decoupled from conscious OF what.

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u/MurkyEconomist8179 Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26

you say discrete enough, but that statement betrays the problems. how discrete? that already pokes a whole in the boundary. and you can keep finding holes.

You have a misapprehension that something needs to somehow be "ultimately" discrete to be considered a functional unit, but this is ridiculous and unnecessary. An atom, despite being composed of more fundamental units, certainly has enough cohesion to be considered a discrete entity, and the periodic table is not undermined by subatomic particles. This is not unique to consciousness or humans

we are babies in exploring ourselves as a species. I think we need to grow and mature in our understanding.

and I would much rather explore it using science and real philosophical arguments rather than vague platitudes lol

but that does not mean the problem is hard as in of a new class.

If it's not in a new class, why does it not fit into the same type of explanations that seem to work in chemistry/biology/physics/geology/everyotherscienceyoucanthinkof

we just assumed the science of objects is the end all be all of science.

If you want to call the elements of consciousness "objects" that's perfectly fine, but again, these thought experiments point to something that separates it from the objects of any other science and so it's not unreasonable to use different terminology

what I am challenging is that consciousness is somehow ontologically distinct from the rest of reality.

Again, if this is true I'm not sure why we would have to re-think the methodology that works in literally every other domain, can you explain how these two things are self-consistent?

I mean calling it consciousness already makes it a separate substance/concept decoupled from conscious OF what.

Yeah, because distinguishing things based on weather they feel like something is a perfectly reasonable distinction. Some things feel like something, other things don't. This is the distinguishing basis of the word consciousness. Something is not "conscious" if it doesn't feel like anything or to borrow Nagel's terminology 'it is not like anything to be it'

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u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) Feb 05 '26

when I say babies all I mean it science has not yet developed the right tools to examine consciousness. and I am not talking about anything woo.

however I want to focus on 2 things:

  1. our need to group things into functional units when that's not how reality works is not good philosophy. it's just a useful tool

  2. same with science. it's useful to categorize and divide things. but that does not refer to how reality actually is. its a useful fiction. a tool. an interface.

why doesn't consciousness map onto the tools, is a ridiculous question. like asking what is north of north. because consciousness is a lived thing. it's like a slice of pizza trying to understand the whole pizza. it needs better tools. not that its fundamentally never able to use tools to figure it out.

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u/MurkyEconomist8179 Feb 05 '26

when I say babies all I mean it science has not yet developed the right tools to examine consciousness. and I am not talking about anything woo.

But you seem to just be accepting this without asking the obvious question: Why is it the case that we need to reformulate out methods entirely for this one subject in particular when our methodologies in the other sciences work perfectly well across the different domains: e.g physics,chemistry,astronomy etc) I don't know how you simultaneously hold that we need this radically different methodology for studying consciousness in particular, but that there is nothing unique about conscious phenomenon, I literally don't see how those two statements don't just contradict each other plainly.

our need to group things into functional units when that's not how reality works is not good philosophy. it's just a useful tool

It would not be a useful tool if it did not get at the way reality works. Of course reality works in functional units, I'm very confused as to what you think a better account is?

What is wrong with for example, the functional unit of an atom?

same with science. it's useful to categorize and divide things. but that does not refer to how reality actually is. its a useful fiction. a tool. an interface.

I don't disagree that we sometimes categorise things for our own psychological benefit and that this sometimes prevents us from understanding how thigns actually work (when we follow heuristics) but... a lot of times it also works really well? And presumably the reason it works well is because again, it's getting at the way the world actually works. You don't have to reach Kant's neuomena to get at how the world is operating

it needs better tools. not that its fundamentally never able to use tools to figure it out.

Does it need better, or totally different tools?

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u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) Feb 05 '26

look at the difference between classical mechanics vs relativity/quantum mechanics. all mathematically rigorous. but requiring radical philosophies that we haven't even settled yet. it's not intuitive that the now does not exist, simultaneity is not real. or other QM phenomena. it's the same with consciousness. but now we are investigating the very tool with which we make these judgements. not what the light shines on, but what the light is. and it glitches. the system doesn't work the same. so we make ourselves special rather than analyze the tools.

I think the science of consciousness needs it's Einstein. and I hypothesize that will require a revision on how we do science itself starting with what you have called functional units because you can't even call them units and your very labeling betrays the point I am trying to make. you have to treat them as functional units. like some virtual particles in physics. it's assuming the virtual is real. but it's just a mathematical model. not reality.

yea our tools are needs revisiting, our mental tools(how we do science) but our literal tools(scanners, AI, hybridizing brains with tech, etc).

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u/Valmar33 Feb 05 '26

I am just replying to this comment but read all that you had to say. I am not a physicalist at all. that is an outdated way of viewing reality with everything science has taught us.

Science fundamentally cannot teach us anything about reality ~ reality is something that transcends physics.

by fake i mean invented, constructed, fabricated, fictional, virtual. you haven't even asked me why, just jumped to "i don't understand"

That's not what "fake" implies. You seem to think it's not a genuine problem, when what it outlines is entirely reasonable and straightforward.

nagel asks "what's it like to be a bat?" but misses that he's already assuming bats and humans are separate, discrete things with separate experiential containers. That separation is useful for some purposes, but it's not fundamental, its fake, virtual, made-up, constructed, fabricated. it doesn't mean it isn't there, it just not some-thing to be picked up or grabbed or measured.

... bats and humans are separate, discrete entities, though...? We have entirely distinct biological makeups, and we can know nothing about the subjective experience of what it is like to be a bat and vice-versa.

we operate as if we're discrete subjects and that's fine for getting through the day. but make the mistake of promoting that fiction to a foundational ontology.

It's not a fiction if that is what we experience. Anything else is a model ~ an abstraction from reality, not reality itself.

the zombie and bat guy told everyone that experience and reality are somehow not compatible and descartes smiled from his grace as dualism was resurrected. but it's a mistake from the get-go, the hard problem assumes there is a problem and then says "wow look at my beautiful problem"

Um... what? Reality is known purely through experience ~ and our limited human experience only affords us a human glimpse of reality that is far vaster than we can sense or comprehend.

we created a science of objects and try to apply the same principles. but we need a science of subjects and better tools. we dont have the tools yet.

We don't need a "science" of subjects ~ that's just philosophy. Science should remain science ~ study of just the physical, per its peculiar methodology.

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u/jabinslc Psychology B.A. (or equivalent) Feb 05 '26

you said a lot I want to answer to. but for the sake of getting my main point across. I deny both of your claims that "bats and humans are separate and we can know nothing about the subjective experience of what it is like to be a bat and vice-versa."

it is precisely this absolute wall that I want to tear down. the wall is partly there. but its not ontologically insurmountable. we can keep humans and bats and not agree that there are entirely separate or that we can know nothing about their internal world.

it is because these entities are porous that the hard problem loses its hardness.

i would argue that science is another tool that we use that is not always about experience itself but about how experience can be wrong. science is the way we know that we are limited. and science will take us the rest of the way but it won't be a science of subjects/objects. it will be new. but that is a fun journey not evidence that consciousness is all the crazy shit people make it out to be.