David Chalmers

Agora

David Chalmers

ur. 1966

Pierwsze przybliżeniecelowe uproszczenie – portret mówi więcej

Nawet pełny opis tego, co robi mózg, nie wyjaśniłby, dlaczego cokolwiek z tego jest przeżywane – oto trudny problem świadomości.

Umiejscowienie

Filozofia analityczna · Oceania · Umysł i świadomość

„Trudny problem” świadomości: dlaczego przetwarzanie informacji jest czymś odczuwalnym?

Kluczowe idee

Trudny problem
Argument z zombie
Rozszerzony umysł

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Wpływ

Pod wpływem 5

Kartezjusz

pod wpływem
Chalmers revived a Cartesian conceivability argument – if zombies are conceivable, consciousness is not physical – for a dualism of properties rather than substances (The Conscious Mind, 1996). D. J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996); R. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641), sixth meditation; SEP “Zombies”
Źródło: szkic AI
Kartezjusz › 1596–1650
Bertrand Russell

pod wpływem ✓
Chalmers took up Russell’s view that physics reveals only structure, leaving intrinsic natures that may ground consciousness, as ‘Russellian monism’ (‘Consciousness and its Place in Nature’, 2002). D. J. Chalmers, “Consciousness and its Place in Nature” (2002); “Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism”, Amherst Lecture in Philosophy 8 (2013); B. Russell, The Analysis of Matter (1927); SEP “Russellian Monism”
Źródło: także w Wikidanych · Wikidata
Bertrand Russell › 1872–1970
Thomas Nagel

pod wpływem
Chalmers defined consciousness with Nagel’s phrase that there is ‘something it is like’ to be a subject and made explaining it the ‘hard problem’ (1995). D. J. Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (1995); The Conscious Mind (1996); T. Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, Philosophical Review 83 (1974)
Źródło: szkic AI
Thomas Nagel › ur. 1937
Saul Kripke

pod wpływem
Chalmers took up Kripke’s modal argument against mind–brain identity and explained a posteriori necessities like ‘water is H₂O’ with two-dimensional semantics (The Conscious Mind, 1996). D. J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996); S. A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1980); SEP “Zombies”
Źródło: szkic AI
Saul Kripke › 1940–2022
Frank Jackson

pod wpływem
Chalmers used Jackson’s knowledge argument about Mary against materialism (The Conscious Mind, 1996) and defended with Jackson the a priori entailment of macroscopic truths by physical ones (2001). D. J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996); D. J. Chalmers and F. Jackson, “Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation”, Philosophical Review 110 (2001); F. Jackson, “Epiphenomenal Qualia”, Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982); SEP “Qualia: The Knowledge Argument”
Źródło: szkic AI
Frank Jackson › ur. 1943

Krytyka

Krytykuje 2

John Searle

krytykuje
Chalmers rejected Searle’s Chinese Room argument: by the principle of organisational invariance, a system with the right functional organisation would be conscious (The Conscious Mind, 1996, ch. 9). D. J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (1996), chs. 7, 9; J. R. Searle, “Consciousness and the Philosophers”, New York Review of Books, 6 March 1997, and the ensuing exchange
Źródło: szkic AI
John Searle › 1932–2025
Daniel Dennett

krytykuje
Chalmers argued that Dennett’s functional account of consciousness addresses only the ‘easy problems’ and denies the explanandum, experience itself (‘Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness’, 1995). D. J. Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (1995); The Conscious Mind (1996); reply: D. C. Dennett, “Facing Backwards on the Problem of Consciousness”, JCS 3 (1996)
Źródło: szkic AI
Daniel Dennett › 1942–2024

Dzieła

1996Świadomy umysł
Trudny problem i argument z zombie.

Stanowisko

Chalmers distinguished the “easy problems” of consciousness – explaining how the brain discriminates stimuli, integrates information and controls behaviour – from the “hard problem”: why all this processing is accompanied by subjective experience at all. His zombie argument runs: a being physically identical to us but without experience is conceivable; what is conceivable in this way is possible; so the physical facts do not fix the facts about consciousness, and physicalism is false. Chalmers therefore defends a naturalistic dualism and takes panpsychist ideas seriously. Critics mostly attack the step from conceivability to possibility. With Andy Clark he also proposed the thesis of the “extended mind”: notebooks or smartphones can, under certain conditions, be part of our mind. In Reality+ he argued that virtual worlds are genuine realities.

Życie i kontekst

Chalmers was born in Sydney in 1966 and studied mathematics in Adelaide and at Oxford before taking his doctorate in philosophy and cognitive science under Douglas Hofstadter at Indiana University. He taught at the Australian National University and New York University, where he co-directs the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness. His talk on the “hard problem” at the first Tucson conference on consciousness in 1994 made his name beyond philosophy.