Locke's View of the Hard Problem of Consciousness and Its Implications for Neuroscience and Computer Science
Frontiers in Psychology June 23, 2017 J. Lisman
A philosophical perspective on consciousness is presented, drawing on John Locke's concept of an 'internal sense' as a second type of sensory input beyond external sense organs. The author contrasts this with Daniel Dennett's view that consciousness emerges from interacting brain subsystems and David Chalmers' pan-proto-psychism, which posits consciousness as a fundamental property of the universe. The argument suggests that considering Locke's internal sense may offer a useful third framework for addressing the hard problem of consciousness—how subjective feeling arises—which remains unresolved despite advances in identifying conscious and unconscious brain systems.