David Chalmers

1966-present · Australian · Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, Cognitive Science, Philosophy of AI

Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind.

When David Chalmers announced at a 1994 Tucson conference there were two kinds of problems about consciousness — easy ones and a single devastating hard one — the room broke into applause, then argument. The easy problems concern cognitive functions: integration, attention, speech. The hard problem is why there is experience at all — why processing doesn't go on in the dark, with nobody home.

Topics David Chalmers addresses

• the hard problem of consciousness
• the easy problems of consciousness
• phenomenal consciousness
• the conceivability argument
• philosophical zombies
• the explanatory gap
• naturalistic dualism
• property dualism
• two-dimensional semantics
• primary and secondary intensions
• the knowledge argument
• the inverted spectrum
• fading qualia
• dancing qualia
• type-F monism
• Russellian monism
• panpsychism
• the combination problem
• the extended mind thesis
• active externalism
• the parity principle
• structural coherence
• organisational invariance
• the double-aspect theory of information

Converse with David Chalmers on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in David Chalmers's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.