Hard problem of consciousness
The question of why certain physical processes are accompanied by lived experience, rather than going on “in the dark”.
Definition
David Chalmers named it in 1995, distinguishing it from the “easy” problems: explaining how the brain discriminates stimuli, integrates information, controls behaviour or produces reports. Easy does not mean simple — but we know what a solution would look like. For experience itself, we do not.
The hard problem makes the question of artificial consciousness especially formidable. If we do not know why our own brain is conscious, we have no reliable criterion for deciding whether another system is. What remains is behaviour, resemblance, theory — and an irreducible element of wager.
See also
Related notions
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