Philosophy of Mind Series (Sess 2) Chalmers: The Conscious Mind, Part 2

David Chalmers (1966- present) is a philosopher and cognitive scientist, specializing in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, He is currently a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University (NYU). Chalmers is best known for formulating the hard problem of consciousness, and for popularizing the philosophical zombie thought experiment, which we will be continuing to discuss at this Meetup as we work through The Conscious Mind. In this Meetup, we'll be touching on some of the more daring and admittedly fun thought experiments stemming from Chalmers' "natural dualism".

In the reading for this Meetup, he argues that consciousness should be seen as a fundamental feature of the natural world—akin to space, time, or mass—because it resists reduction to physical or functional terms. And, unlike Cartesian interactionism, naturalistic dualism holds that phenomenal properties are built into the fabric of reality but do not violate physical laws. Chalmers also outlines how phenomenal properties can coexist with physical processes: physical systems realize both familiar physical properties (mass, charge, neural firing) and basic phenomenal properties (subjective feel).

In addition, Chalmers explores some rather speculative models. He proposes that alongside physical laws, there should be principles directly linking physical processes (for instance, specific neural activities or information-processing structures) to phenomenal properties (what it is like to have those processes). He explores possible research strategies, including correlating third-person measures (neuroimaging, behavior) with first-person reports, and investigating candidate neural structures most plausibly tied to consciousness.

We'll close with a discussion emphasizing that uncovering these 'phenomenal' laws represents the “hard problem” of consciousness in scientific form—an endeavor that may require new methods but no fundamental revision of the causal closure of the physical.

This promises to be fun and engaging session stuffed with numerous thought experiment ranging from AI to alternative worlds. You should find the reading very approachable as well. For this Meetup, we will be reading;

Chapter 7: Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia, ~30 pages

Chapter 8: Consciousness and Information: Some Speculation, ~30 pages.

Chapter 6 is also excellent, but not required!

I will be using the version published by Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-511789-9)

Hope to see you at the session.