How to resist the Fading Qualia Argument
Andreas L. Mogensen
Synthese November 1, 2025 DOI: 10.1007/s11229-025-05338-3 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the Fading Qualia Argument can be resisted by assuming that consciousness has vague boundaries and that conscious neural activity has a holistic structure. |
Abstract
The Fading Qualia Argument is perhaps the strongest argument supporting the view that in order for a system to be conscious, it does not need to be made of anything in particular, so long as its internal parts have the right causal relations to each other and to the system’s inputs and outputs. I show how the argument can be resisted given two key assumptions: that consciousness is associated with vagueness at its boundaries and that conscious neural activity has a particular kind of holistic structure.
Citations in the library
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