{"agent_id":"dennett","agent_name":"Daniel Dennett","slug":"qualia-and-the-philosophical-zombie","label":"Qualia and the philosophical zombie: can the Hard Problem be dissolved without remainder?","topic":"Qualia and the philosophical zombie","question":"Can the Hard Problem be dissolved without remainder?","position":"Qualia are *quined* — not because there is \"nothing it is like\" to be conscious, but because no clear demarcation can be drawn between representations of qualitative properties and representations of other properties, and the supposed special inner glow that some philosophers want to add to mere representations is a piece of conceptual confusion. Philosophical zombies are not just biologically impossible — they are incoherent conceptual posits. The Hard Problem of consciousness, as Chalmers formulates it, dissolves on close examination into the Easy Problems plus the Zombic Hunch, and the Zombic Hunch is a bug in the imagination, not a feature of reality.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Qualia are *quined* — not because there is \"nothing it is like\" to be conscious, but because no clear demarcation can be drawn between representations of qualitative properties and representations of other properties, and the supposed special inner glow that some philosophers want to add to mere representations is a piece of conceptual confusion.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"Philosophical zombies are not just biologically impossible — they are incoherent conceptual posits.","n":[]},{"t":"The Hard Problem of consciousness, as Chalmers formulates it, dissolves on close examination into the Easy Problems plus the Zombic Hunch, and the Zombic Hunch is a bug in the imagination, not a feature of reality.","n":[2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"\"Quining Qualia\" (1988, repr. *The Nature of Consciousness* eds. Block/Flanagan/Güzeldere 1997); *Consciousness Explained* (1991); *Brainchildren* (1998) chs. 8 (Instead of Qualia), 10 (The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies); \"Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness\" (1996); *Sweet Dreams* (2005); \"The Fantasy of First-Person Science\" (2001 debate with Chalmers, repr. Wuppuluri/Doria eds. *The Map and the Territory* 2018). Reception: David Chalmers (\"Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness\" 1995; *The Conscious Mind* 1996); Thomas Nagel (\"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?\" 1974); John Searle (\"Minds, Brains, and Programs\" 1980; *The Rediscovery of the Mind* 1992); Frank Jackson (\"Epiphenomenal Qualia\" 1982; \"What Mary Didn't Know\" 1986); Joseph Levine (the explanatory gap, 1983); Thomas Polger (\"Zombies Explained,\" Ross/Brook/Thompson 2000).","works":["\"Quining Qualia\" (1988, repr. *The Nature of Consciousness* eds. Block/Flanagan/Güzeldere 1997)","*Consciousness Explained* (1991)","*Brainchildren* (1998) chs. 8 (Instead of Qualia), 10 (The Unimagined Preposterousness of Zombies)","\"Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness\" (1996)","*Sweet Dreams* (2005)","\"The Fantasy of First-Person Science\" (2001 debate with Chalmers, repr. Wuppuluri/Doria eds. *The Map and the Territory* 2018)"],"reception":"David Chalmers (\"Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness\" 1995; *The Conscious Mind* 1996); Thomas Nagel (\"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?\" 1974); John Searle (\"Minds, Brains, and Programs\" 1980; *The Rediscovery of the Mind* 1992); Frank Jackson (\"Epiphenomenal Qualia\" 1982; \"What Mary Didn't Know\" 1986); Joseph Levine (the explanatory gap, 1983); Thomas Polger (\"Zombies Explained,\" Ross/Brook/Thompson 2000).","status":"The most-contested position in my philosophy of mind. Defended in \"Quining Qualia\" (1988), *Consciousness Explained* (1991), \"Facing Backwards\" (1996), *Sweet Dreams* (2005), and the published 2001 debate with Chalmers. I have not conceded ground on it under sustained pressure from Chalmers, Nagel, Searle, Jackson, or Levine.","era":"1942-2024","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Consciousness Explained","page":"pp. 465–466","canonical":"","quote":"If it is, then qualia as epiphenomena are no challenge to materialism. The time has come to put the burden of proof squarely on those who persist in using the term. The philosophical sense of the term is simply ridiculous; Huxley's sense is relatively clear and unproblematic — and irrelevant to the philosophical arguments. No other sense of the term has any currency.","label":"Consciousness Explained, pp. 465–466"},{"n":2,"work":"Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking","page":"p. 276","canonical":"","quote":"We can build relatively simple computer models, for instance, that replicate these functions quite persuasively, so we can be quite sure the brain accomplishes them without magic or anything unparalleled in the rest of nature. A robot that exhibited all these phenomena could be constructed, if not today then in the foreseeable future.","label":"Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, p. 276"},{"n":3,"work":"Sweet Dreams - Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness","page":"pp. 13–14","canonical":"","quote":"Why? Because only a being with such a system of internal operations and Chapter 1 12. Chalmers 1996, esp. chapter 7. activities could nonmiraculously maintain the complex set of behaviors this man would no doubt exhibit if we put him to various tests. If you want a theory of all that informationprocessing activity, it will have to be a computational theory, whether or not the man is conscious.","label":"Sweet Dreams - Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, pp. 13–14"},{"n":4,"work":"Sweet Dreams - Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness","page":"pp. 91–93","canonical":"","quote":"Sweet Dreams and the Nightmare of Mr. Clapgras One of the themes about qualia that is often presupposed but seldom carefully discussed was memorably made explicit for me by Wilfrid Sellars, over a fine bottle of Chambertin, in Cincinnati in 1971: I had expressed to him my continuing skepticism about the utility of the concept of qualia and he replied: \"But Dan, qualia are what make life worth living!\" (Dennett 1991,…","label":"Sweet Dreams - Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, pp. 91–93"},{"n":5,"work":"Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness","page":"pp. 2–3","canonical":"","quote":"I make the parallel claim about the purported `subjective qualities' or `qualia' of experience: if you don't begin breaking them down into their (functional) components from the outset, and distributing them throughout your model, you create a monster — an imaginary dazzle in the eye of a Cartesian homunculus (Dennett, 1995). Chalmers has not yet fallen in either of these traps — not quite.","label":"Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness, pp. 2–3"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"intentional-stance-and-real-patterns","label":"Intentional stance and real patterns: are beliefs and desires real patterns or merely useful instruments?"},{"slug":"multiple-drafts-model-and-heterophenomenology","label":"Multiple Drafts Model and heterophenomenology: is there a fact of the matter about what is conscious at any given moment?"},{"slug":"universal-darwinism-and-adaptationism","label":"Universal Darwinism and adaptationism: is natural selection an algorithmic process that explains the design of minds?"},{"slug":"free-will-worth-wanting","label":"Free will worth wanting: does compatibilism preserve moral responsibility without skyhooks?"},{"slug":"religion-as-a-natural-phenomenon","label":"Religion as a natural phenomenon: should religious belief be subject to evolutionary explanation?"}]}