Conscience. In most popular scientific articles about neuroscience or human nature, there are discussions about the mysteries of consciousness and its appearance. It is difficult not to admire this unusual phenomenon, which forms the basis of all human life—both the inner world and the interpersonal. Scientists have been trying for centuries to understand what makes the appearance of consciousness possible. Such work could not remain fruitless, so what is the current stage of research in this area?
To begin with, let's define the Hard Problem of Consciousness and what makes it so hard. This term was introduced by David Chalmers in 1995 in his revolutionary article "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness." Although the question of the emergence of something immaterial, which forms the basis of our inner life, has been discussed in scientific circles for many years, Chalmers' work allowed us to structure previously emerging hypotheses and come to a coherent conclusion within the framework of a dualistic view of the problem. A "starting line" was designated, allowing the construction of the global theory of consciousness to begin.
First, Chalmers determined which part of the inner life is reasonable to be called "consciousness." Although this term is usually used to refer to all conscious activity as a whole, in the context of the hard problem, it is correct to call consciousness only experience, or "qualia." In this situation, experience refers to the sensation of perceiving information, a subjective experience that constitutes our being. The classic illustration of experience is red. Though we can physically describe light waves and the mechanism of their recognition on the retina, this does not explain why there is something called a "perception of redness," which refers to why we can subjectively experience a vision of red. This occurrence is called "experience." Chalmers argues that experience cannot be explained physically because of the lack of material structures that are carriers of experience. The proof is, for example, the so-called phenomenon of the "Philosophical Zombie."
The Philosophical Zombie is the possibility of an object that is completely indistinguishable from a person. However, this object has no awareness or experience. Strictly speaking, we cannot prove that the people around us have experience. Think about whether your friends are necessarily able to be aware. Perhaps they have no consciousness, and their brain only processes information without creating a subjective experience. Their perception of red may be the same as your perception of green. There is no way to check whether two physically identical entities have the same perception of the world.
Based on this thesis, Chalmers argues that intangible subjective experience is a phenomenon and not a product of the activity of matter. He describes the experience as a fundamental property of the world associated with information processing. For example, there is a simple logical system. Chalmers cited the thermostat as an example. The thermostat perceives signals from the outside world and somehow reacts to them; that is, it processes the information. During this processing, the thermostat "realizes" the temperature, albeit in the simplest way. Chalmers refers to this concept as the “Double-Aspect Theory of Information”. This theory assumes the duality of information processing: in the course of working with information, in addition to the physical processes that form the logic of the system, there is the appearance of subjective experience. If you follow this approach, you should accept panpsychism as the truth—the doctrine that everything in the universe has consciousness.
Despite his efforts, Chalmers' theory has been criticized. Hypotheses about the duality of the world, although attractive, are unfalsifiable; they do not assume the possibility of being refuted. The possibility of refutation is one of the most important characteristics of a scientific theory. If an assumption cannot be refuted, it cannot be verified, which means it cannot be proved. Chalmers himself points out the impossibility of verifying the existence of consciousness in an individual. It is difficult to argue with this assertion of his. Thought experiments, for example, Philosophical Zombies, confirm the absence of indisputable external signs of consciousness. Does this mean that consciousness, in principle, is an unscientific term? Is it also unfalsifiable? It would be counterintuitive—everyone can independently verify the presence of consciousness itself. But how can you prove its existence scientifically?
Bibliography:
Chalmers, D.J. (1995) “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness”
Chalmers, D.J. (1996) “The Conscious Mind”
Nagel, T. (1974) “What is it like to be a bat?”
Dennet, D.C. (1991) “Сonsciousness Explained”
Ramachandran, V.S. (2005) “A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers”