A harder problem of consciousness: reflections on a 50-year quest for the alchemy of qualia.
Juan D Gomez
Frontiers in Psychology May 14, 2025 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1592628 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Light Artificial intelligence Space Consciousness Perception Qualia Iit |
| Key points | Argues that consciousness and subjective experience ("qualia") remain a fundamental scientific and philosophical challenge, and credits Thomas Nagel's 1974 paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" with bringing qualia into mainstream discourse by articulating the difficulty of explaining subjective experience in objective terms. |
Abstract
Consciousness is a fundamental aspect of human nature, yet it remains one of the most elusive scientific and philosophical challenges. Explaining what it means to have an experience-what philosophers call qualia-is a conundrum that has perplexed thinkers for centuries. Arguably, Thomas Nagel helped bring the concept of qualia into mainstream philosophical discourse over 50 years ago with his seminal paper from 1974: What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1), which articulated the difficulty of explaining subjective experience in objective terms.
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- What is consciousness and what it is for. An introduction to extended information theory. Frontiers in Psychology 2025
- Qualities, subjectivity and spatial extension: is there a common factor? Frontiers in Psychology June 29, 2026
- AI Qualia Engineering Through the Yoneda Lemma Advances in Computational Intelligence and Robotics January 29, 2026