Bio-centric Views of the Origin of Consciousness: The Search for the Solution to the Hard Problem
The First Minds December 22, 2018 Arthur S. Reber
Efforts to solve the Hard Problem of consciousness, which search for neural correlates or trace the evolutionary emergence of consciousness, are reviewed and found wanting. The reason is that they all begin with human consciousness and treat it as a distinct type rather than as a token on the same existential continuum as other minds, committing a category error. This reveals the emergentist's dilemma: the difficulty of explaining how consciousness could spring into existence when one moment before it did not exist. The chapter anticipates criticism and offers prophylactic arguments.