A socio-historical take on the meta-problem of consciousness
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the difficulty of explaining consciousness depends on the notion of explanation at play, and that the neuroscience of consciousness has been hindered by socio-historical factors that leave its basic empirical facts (the explanans) poorly established. The authors propose that the gap between ambitious explanatory aims and weak explanans may account for Chalmers's "the meta-problem". |
Abstract
Whether consciousness is hard to explain depends on the notion of explanation at play. Importantly, for an explanation to be successful, it is necessary to have a correct understanding of the relevant basic empirical facts (i.e. the explanans). We review socio-historical factors that account for why, as a field, the neuroscience of consciousness has not been particularly successful at getting the basic facts right. And yet, we tend to aim for explanations of an unrealistically and unnecessarily ambitious nature. This discrepancy between ambitious notions of explanations and the relatively poor quality of explanans may account for what Chalmers calls “the meta-problem”.
Citations in the library
Cited by 5
- Introduction: Reality as One Sees It In Consciousness we Trust February 10, 2022
- What of the Hard Problem? In Consciousness we Trust February 10, 2022
- An Exploratory Analysis of Collective Patterns of Conscious Experience Using a Self-Report Questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology August 13, 2021
- Intuition-Driven Navigation of the Hard Problem of Consciousness Review of Philosophy and Psychology February 27, 2021
- Hard criteria for empirical theories of consciousness Cognitive Neuroscience July 14, 2020
Cites 3
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- Consciousness and Complexity Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science December 4, 1998