"The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example?"
- David Chalmers
"Why (and how) is there something it is like to be an organism - something it is like for the organism?"
- Mark Solm
The Source of Consciousness - Mark Solms | TranscendentPhilosop
"The easiest way to simplify the hard problem of consciousness is this - 'movement is not experience'. From a physicalist perspective, all of reality reduces to the movement of particles. Yet, no where in these processes is an obvious translation mechanism for movement to become qualitative experience (color, taste, sound, smell, pleasure, pain, conceptual understanding). If there is no mechanism for the translation of movement into experience, then it doesn't matter how much complexity you add to the problem, it will never become conscious. This is why AI can be reasonably said to not possess consciousness - because their internal structure is limited to the mere movement of electrons. But the problem is, brains are structured very similarly to AI. Our brains also reduce to moving particles. Hence the hard problem - why are we conscious, but AI is not? What about us bridges the gap between movement and experience?"
- Seth Garrett
"If you don't know what the building blocks of consciousness are, then you have no authority to say which objects have consciousness and which don't."
- Seth Garrett
"This gap between collisions and consciousness is the issue highlighted by the hard problem of consciousness... There is nothing normal about one set of atoms colliding with another set of atoms to magically produce feelings... Are the feelings located in the atoms at the source of the collision, or are they located in a higher-order self floating around? How are these feelings transported to the higher-order self? Why does one set of atoms produce one feeling and another set of atoms produce another feeling?"
- Seth Garrett
"Cosmic Consciousness" Analogy (Hard Problem of Consciousness) | TranscendentPhilosop
"In the binary code of a computer, 10001110 is passed around to signify the color red. Yet nothing about this information conveys the essence of what it feels like to perceive the color red. If you told me that AI algorithms are consciously perceiving the color red every time 10001110 is passed around, I would think you are insane. Yet when we replace the ones and zeros with molecular configurations of atoms in neurotransmitters, suddenly people are willing to accept that configurations of atoms can produce the qualia of redness?"
- Seth Garrett
"Cosmic Consciousness" Analogy (Hard Problem of Consciousness) | TranscendentPhilosop
"To me, the hard problem [of consciousness] is basically the idea that we have physical facts (neurotransmitter collides into a neuron) and that magically produces mental facts (the qualia of redness). Materialist dualism is basically the recognition that these collisions have two properties - physical properties and mental properties."
- Seth Garrett
"Please explain how unconsciously dead materials/energy suddenly come alive and summon an infinitely rich variety of immaterial conscious qualia whose characteristics seem to have nothing to do with the material/energy involved."
"It's like aggregating rocks (atoms) and then a visible ghost (consciousness) is produced. And the more rocks you gather, the more visually impressive the ghost. But the attributes of this ghost seem to have nothing to do with the rocks gathered. This transition from rocks to ghost is then quite confusing. Similarly, that transition from atoms to emotions/feelings/qualia is so weird that it bothers people."
- Seth Garrett
Hard Problem of Consciousness Simplified | TranscendentPhilosop