Hard problem of consciousness

In the philosophy of mind, the "hard problem" of consciousness is to explain why and how humans (and other organisms) have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experience. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how physical systems give a human being the ability to discriminate, to integrate information, and to perform behavioural functions such as watching, listening, speaking (including generating an utterance that appears to refer to personal behaviour or belief), and so forth. The easy problems are amenable to functional explanation—that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioural—since each physical system can be explained purely by reference to the "structure and dynamics" that underpin the phenomenon.

Proponents of the hard problem propose that it is categorically different from the easy problems since no mechanistic or behavioural explanation could explain the character of an experience, not even in principle. Even after all the relevant functional facts are explicated, they argue, there will still remain a further question: "why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?" To bolster their case, proponents of the hard problem frequently turn to various philosophical thought experiments, involving philosophical zombies, or inverted qualia, or the ineffability of colour experiences, or the unknowability of foreign states of consciousness, such as the experience of being a bat.