Chalmers’ Hard Problem and the Living Moment of Now

A story and a challenge for the philosophically minded.

A Thesis Challenging the Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers "Consciousness" Paradigm

Presented to the Fort Lewis College Philosophy Club in Durango

If you’ve plunged into the philosophical arena of human consciousness, I think we’d agree—if on nothing else—that the expert dialogue is a great big ball of confusion. After all, in a 2024 survey by Robert Kuhn, there are 325 competing philosophical and scientific theories of consciousness. That’s not theories closing in on understanding; that’s 325 opinions that don’t convince any peers.

At the head of this ball of confusion is the Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers paradigm, summed up in Chalmers’ Hard Problem of Consciousness: Why and how do physical processes in the brain (neural activity) give rise to subjective experience? What is it like to be something? How does matter become thought?

Writer Marvin Von Renchler excellently summarizes the flaw in the Hard Problem: “Rather than demonstrate a separation between physical processes and subjective experience, it is assumed.”

Biologically, everything we observe points to continuity: increasingly complex systems of memory, integration and self-referential processing emerging stepwise under selection pressures. There is no clear place for something non-physical to be introduced.

Von Renchler concludes that, “The ‘hard problem’ is less an unsolved mystery and more a framing issue, a mismatch between philosophical categories and how evolved systems actually work.”

There’s another objection I’ve yet to receive a serious response to: Why search for our mind wholly within our brain in the first place?

Striving to Understand Consciousness. (with a little help from Nick Lane)

Exploring how science is unraveling philosophy’s eccentric Hard Problem, with some help from Professor Nick Lane. 

David Chalmers leads philosophers who claim scientists, (that is people dedicated to studying physical reality), will never figure out how biological processes can produce subjective experience without adapting some woo.

Then they go on to talk about studying “consciousness” by focusing on neurons and the brain. While the body gets lost like some kind of externality, an irrelevance to minimize and avoid.

Now please consider for a moment, your brain is intimately connected down to every cubic millimeter of your body. Your living body is about a nonstop exchange of information and resources between itself and the outside world. (Same as all other animals, down to single celled creatures.)

It is your body that experiences the bike ride, it is your mouth, nose, fingers, etc. who are experiencing the food being eaten, same with the child or lover being touched — it is not your brain.

Everything your brain has to work with, must be processed and communicated via our individual living body, (with its unique perceptual filters — product of nature via nurture.)

Nick Lane uses the metaphor of our body’s biology and organs, as a full set of orchestra instruments, the physical biology scientists have been studying. Nick suggests it’s time to listen to the music they make. The bioelectrical rhythms and fluctuating fields that convey what those biological instruments are performing.

The brain? That’s the conductor, and the music that’s the thoughts and feeling surging through our bodies. At the end of this article I’ve added a 266 word quote from Dr. Lane, who does a superb job of conveying the concept.

CBC #2 Reber's Q/A - Student's Resource, transcript of highlights.

 Prof. Reber's insightful Cellular Basis of Consciousness presents a key understanding regarding the actual physical facts surrounding the origins of our human consciousness.  Metaphysics-enthusiasts will sniff & resent & ignore til the cows come home.  Still, here it is.  The answers are in Evolution!   

If you "believe" in Science., you'll want to learn about Prof Reber's suggestions.

Professor Arthur Reber's Question and Answer Session

The “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)”

Reber’s 2018, Institut des sciences cognitives - UQAM presentation.

{Part one, visit The "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" proposal - A Student's Introduction to Dr. Arthur Reber's CBC}

A challenging audience, Professor Arthur Reber rises to the occasion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m posting this transcript of highlights from Professor Reber's talk, because I’m stunned at how little attention Reber’s "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" conception has received since Reber started sharing this with the academic community over seven years ago. 

I believe the profoundly insightful Cellular Basis of Consciousness holds the key to understanding the actual physical facts regarding the source of our human consciousness.  

The "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" - A Student's Introduction to Dr. Arthur Reber's CBC

Recently I finished listening to Nick Lane’s “Transformer,” with its significant molecular and mitochondrial insights, and its superb epilogue titled “Self.”  Then, someone at medium.com suggested Arthur Reber, and I was amazed by Dr. Reber's 2018 presentation at Institut des sciences cognitives – UQAM. It seems to me to dovetail with Professor Lane's exposition and it feels to me like I've found the last major missing piece of the puzzle that I've been putting together for myself.

An Introduction to Dr Reber's thoughts: 

The “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)”

Reber’s 2018, Institut des sciences cognitives - UQAM presentation.

Where, Nick Lane took me down into our physiology and beyond—into chemistry, then into physics, and the Kreb’s cycle—before bringing it around to mitochondria and some mind-blowing new insights. Finishing with an elegant, most informed deconstruction of the so-called Hard Problem.

Arthur Reber took me back into deep time, origins, and to first functional cells. 

Why did only one type of genetic structure succeed, out of what must have been bazillions of reactions over three billion years? Reber’s “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)” points the way to where to look for answers.  I find it is consilient with the treasure trove of scientific information I’ve already accumulated. It’s harmonious with my perceptions as a lifelong deep time Evolution enthusiast. Then Reber finished with an impassioned, spot-on deconstruction, and a resolution, to Philosophy’s misguided meta-physical “Hard Problem”—What’s not to love, I ask?

How we formulate our questions often says more about our own expectations, than about the topic.

I want to state that I believe Arthur Reber’s (who died a couple months ago) presentation deserves to be in the public domain and receive a hell of a lot more exposure than it has received!