Dennis Nicholson

This book argues that the hard problem of consciousness is epistemological, perspectival, and resolvable, rather than ontological and irresolvable. The brain as we see and otherwise sense it is the reality as known rather than the reality as such. If the same is true of our conscious experiences, it becomes possible that the hard problem is epistemological and resolvable. Conscious experiences may be ontologically reducible to certain brain states but have knowledge content that, for purely perspectival reasons, is epistemologically irreducible to an outside observer's knowledge of the brain states. If so, there is no hard problem, no explanatory gap. Everything about a conscious experience, including its irreducible knowledge content, is subsumed within the reality known to an outside observer as a brain state and everything about it – including why it is 'like this' and why it is 'like anything' – can be identified and explained in externally observed terms. (The brain states should be unique in ways that will make the resulting accounts plausible and satisfactory.). We need not explain how the brain states transform themselves into the conscious experiences. This does not happen, except through a shift in perspective. A particular conscious experience and brain state are simply the same physical thing known in irreconcilably different ways. A full account of a given conscious experience and brain state consists of a full external observer's explanation of the brain state mapped to our irreducible inner view of what the conscious experience is like (relatively trivial information but essential to a complete account).

What if the simple application of logic to some of the more obvious facets of human psychology offers the best path to enlightenment, transcendence, and realising our true nature? What if it is also a key step in the development of a coherent science of experience and behaviour? The book ‘Everyday Transcendence: The Way of Psychology’ offers support for both suggestions. A shorter, more accessible and informal follow-up to Nicholson's 'Self, Consciousness, and Being: The Transcendent Perspective', the book presents a less complex presentation of the same basic case, offering new insights and clarifications in the process. It provides a pared-down ap­proach to the topic that can stand as a sufficient ac­count in its own right but also provide an introduction to the longer work at a level acceptable to both busy academic readers and informed laypersons.

The book argues that there is a best design for the human self, making the case in favour of the transcendent self-view – a perspective on the self that transcends ideas and viewpoints generally, seeing and treating them as subordinate facets of a total self that has empty consciousness, the underlying essence of consciousness itself, as its resting focus and core. The two main claims defended are, first, that it is the one self-view that fully and accurately reflects our true behavioural and experiential nature; second, that making it the basis of the fully developed human self, whilst also maintaining unique personal elements, should be an aim for both the individual and educational professionals. For the individual, taking this step may be thought of as personal transcendence and may even be given a spiritual slant, but it is best seen as an everyday kind of transcendence that is really nothing special – just a sensible and logical endpoint to human development. An account of how the perspective helps resolve the hard problem of consciousness is also given. Chapters 1 and 24 are available in philpapers as downloadable pdfs. A search of philpapers for 'Self, Consciousness, and Being: The Transcendent Perspective' will produce links to both: Self, Consciousness, and Being: The Transcendent Perspective >> Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview (a summary of the case argued) + References (for book). (pages 4-29) Self, Consciousness, and Being: The Transcendent Perspective >> Chapter 24 (The Hard Problem Made Easy) + References for the book. (pages 377-394)

The Knowledge Argument is misconstructed. Knowing that it is ‘just obvious’ that Mary will learn something new on leaving her black and white room, we nevertheless assume she can acquire a complete knowledge of the physical inside it – thereby predetermining the outcome of the thought experiment in favour of a refutation of physicalism. If we reformulate the argument to leave the question of what she can learn in the room open, it becomes clear, not only that physicalism can survive the Knowledge Argument, but also that there is only one perspective on the relationship between qualia and the physical that will permit it to do so. If physicalism is true, this perspective must be the correct view of the qualia-physical relationship – the solution to the mind-body problem, a conclusion supported by its ability to resolve a number of associated difficulties, including Kripke’s problem for proposed identities and Chalmers’ Hard Problem

Assume that a quale as we experience it is a perspective on an underlying physical state, rather than the physical state as such – the reality as known as distinct from the reality as such. Assume, further, that this inner perspective is integral to, and materially co-extensive with, the physical state itself. Assume, finally, that the physical state in question is known as a brain state of a particular kind by an external observer of the brain in which it occurs. The result is a perspective in which a quale is entirely physical; a position that resolves several known difficulties for physicalism, including those associated with the explanatory gap, Jackson’s knowledge argument, and Chalmers’ hard problem of consciousness

I outline and develop a particular physicalist perspective on qualia, and suggest that it may be the basis of a correct account of the relationship of mental states to the physical world. Assume that a quale is a perspective on a physical state in the organism – the reality as known as distinct from the reality as such – but that the perspective, though it entails irreducible experiential knowledge, has no physical substance over that encompassed in the physical state itself. Assume this physical state is also a brain state. The position is a useful one. First, reductionist physicalism is true, but experiential qualities are irreducible physical knowledge, and a required part of our physical world view. Second, experiences are not additional problems over those addressed externally, but only how these problems seem when known internally – an experience just is the physical state that underlies its external counterpart, and the same standard scientific account suffices to explain both, permitting a science of consciousness to develop by applying the same standard external–observer–based methods adopted in older scientific disciplines. Finally, challenges to physicalism associated with the ‘unbridgeable gap’, Leibniz's Law, Jackson's knowledge argument, and Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness are successfully countered.

A physicalist view of qualia labelled non-eliminative reductionism is outlined. If it is true, qualia and physicalism can co-exist without difficulty. First, qualia present no particular problem for reductionist physicalism - they are entirely physical, can be studied and explained using the standard scientific approach, and present no problem any harder than any other scientists face. Second, reductionist physicalism presents no particular problem for qualia – they can be encompassed within an entirely physicalist position without any necessity, either to reduce them to non-existence, or to treat them as new fundamental properties. It is suggested that the position also has sufficient explanatory power to successfully deal with the 'why like anything – why does experience exist at all' question and to counter both Chalmers' Conceivability Argument and Jackson's Knowledge Argument.

A physicalist view of qualia labelled non-eliminative reductionism is outlined. If it is true, qualia and physicalism can co-exist without difficulty. First, qualia present no particular problem for reductionist physicalism - they are entirely physical, can be studied and explained using the standard scientific approach, and present no problem any harder than any other scientists face. Second, reductionist physicalism presents no particular problem for qualia – they can be encompassed within an entirely physicalist position without any necessity, either to reduce them to non-existence, or to treat them as new fundamental properties. It is suggested that the position also has sufficient explanatory power to successfully deal with the 'why like anything – why does experience exist at all' question and to counter both Chalmers' Conceivability Argument and Jackson's Knowledge Argument.