A Rebuttal to the Hard Problem of Consciousness

The article entitled " Why can't the world's greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness" published in the Guardian Journal by Mr. Burkeman caught my attention as I was researching for some academic works on consciousness. The paper articulated an argument presented by David Chalmers in Tucson, Texas in 1994 about “the hard problem of consciousness". The problem basically refers to the difficulty of explaining how the physical neural activities in the brain give rise to experiential consciousness.

The hard problem is not actually a problem, if and only if, the author of the argument will reconsider the Simplified Definition of Consciousness, the Theory of Information Materialization, the Software Illusion, and the Xylophone Analogy proposed by Lawsin in his book Originemology. In his thought experiment, the Caveman in the Box, and in his lab research, the Bowlingual Experiment, Lawsin discovered that the basic fundamental indicator of consciousness lies in the resolution of  association. In layman's terms, if an entity has the ability to associate or match its abstract ideas with physical realities, then such an organism is a conscious being.

This assertion was also unfolded based on the Human Mental Handicap and the Standard Consciousness Equation. The two most prominent theories are worth discussing here:

Lawsin coined the expression "the Human Mental Handicap" in an attempt to define consciousness in its simplified form. He claimed that "No Humans can think of something without associating such something with a physical object". If plants can hear, smell, feel and remember their surroundings, then it shows that they have the ability to associate what they sense with other objects. If they can feel warm, then they know what hotness is. If they can hear music, then they can differentiate regular from irregular waves, or maybe breeze to noise. If they have the ability to do this one-to-one correspondence, matching one thing with another thing, then plants are conscious beings. On the other hand, dogs use objects like bowls, balls, and bones and pair them with words like food, play, and walk. Their ability to associate mental images with physical objects just shows that dogs are conscious beings. However, every study in the field of the mind fails to observe that the brain is actually empty of information at a certain age.

Consciousness can also be put in a simple equation: If A is conscious with B then A is conscious. If A is alone then A is not conscious. In other words, If I am conscious with my dog then I am conscious. If I exist by myself then I cannot be conscious. I mean, I am alive, but not aware. Therefore, under these assumptions, consciousness is made up of two basic elements: A and B. By definition, awareness means a dualpairing of oneself(A) and of one's surroundings(B). Plants are aware of their surroundings, but they are not aware of themselves. Are plants conscious? Animals also interact with their environment, but some animals are not aware of themselves (Mirror test). Are these other animals conscious?


Lawsin also cited 7 arguments/paradigms for why consciousness is physical and not non-physical:

1. The Caveman-in-the-box; is a hypothetical experiment about the source of information and its acquisition by the very first primitive man on earth.
2. The Codexation Dilemma; is a conundrum that rejects the transformation of abstract ideas into physical realities.
3. The Guesswork Predicament; is a concept that claims that all ideas invented by men are all circumstantial, assumptions, or guesses accepted as valid via the consensus of the Majority.
4. The Scription Jump; a one-way irreversible codexation of information from physicals to physicals or from abstracts to abstract. (e.g. the Mirror Equation, the Hello Reversal Illusion, the Geometrical Hole).
5. The Black Train Experience; is a thought experiment that attempts to show that reality only exists due to the illusion of consciousness.
6. The Software Illusion: the abstracts and physicals analogy of Bits and Pixels.
7. The Bowlingual Experiment: the origin, creation, and exchange of information between two species: a malamute and a chihuahua.

In Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, Chalmers also reiterated that:

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience (all organisms are subjects of experience). But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing (there is nothing complex here if we just know the nature of what a system is and how its components work). Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C (the mirror equation doesn't need eyes to see). How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image or to experience an emotion (scription theory) It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises (codexation dilemma). Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all (sensor-actuator dualpairing)?

Other formulations of the "hard problem":

"How is it that some organisms are subjects of experience? "
"Why does awareness of sensory information exist at all?"
"Why do qualia exist?"
"Why is there a subjective component to experience? "
"Why aren't we philosophical zombies? "

Note: Dualists argue that for something to be non-physical, it must literally be outside the realm of physics; that is, not in space at all and undetectable in principle by the instruments of physics. They tend to believe that conscious mental states or minds are radically different from anything in the physical world at all. They also recognize that the category “physical” is broader than the category “material". There is something that might be physical but not material like magnetism or an electrical field. In IM, abstracts refer to non-dimensional things like ideas, words, or numbers, while Physicals refer to dimensional solid objects like plants, animals, or the universe. Dimensional means the physical attributes of a thing in terms of height, weight, mass, density, temperature, and to some extent like waves and fields.

Also, some false philosophical ideas about consciousness are presented and will be corrected here:

1. Dogs and other animals can't reason and plan in ways humans do. (Fodor 1974)
2. Only organisms with brains have consciousness. 
3. Explanatory gap can't be filled. (Levine 1983)
4. What is it like to be a bat?  (Nagel 1974)
5. Consciousness entails some form of self-consciousness. (Kant 1781)

And support some ideas like:

1. Human cognitive limitations. (Jackson 1982)
2. Not all mental representations are conscious. (Metzinger 2000)
3. A Mental change depends on a Physical change. (Kim 1993)
4. Consciousness can't be identical to anything physical.
5. No connection between Mental(mind) and Physical (brain).  (Kripke 1972)

The question of the Hard Problem - is how do the physical neural activities in the brain give rise to experiential consciousness? - is poorly constructed in the sense that there is no connection between mental (abstract) activity and brain (physical) activity (Scriptional Jump). The Real Hard Problem of Consciousness lies in a simple question - How does the brain store information? (Lawsin 1988).

Once humans solve the true hard problem, robots will be the last human on earth.

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" If x is conscious with y,  then x is conscious. If x exists alone, then x is not conscious." 

~ joey lawsin

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NOTICE: Articles on this site are composed of random thoughts. The transcript may not be in its final form. It may be edited, updated, or even revised in the future based on the outcomes of the author's experiments.

Public Domain Notice: Copyright (c) 2000. All rights reserved. This article is part of a book entitled Biotronics: The Silver Species. Copies are welcome to be shared or distributed publicly as long as proper citations are observed. Please cite as follows: The Biotronics Project, Joey Lawsin, 1988, USA.

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