Abstract

What if there is no hard problem with consciousness? Daniel Clement Dennett, King’s College London, The Philosophical Society, January, 13th, 2014. [Daniele Mario Cassaghi] How is it possible to distinguish a system which is conscious of its internal states from one which is not? In other terms, on which methods can we rely to discern a human being from a zombie with no “consciousness” at all? If I perceive red, I am, quo human being, conscious of the “redness” of the strawberry in front of me. How is it possible for a non-conscious system to be different from me? After all, it just perceives that strawberry without being internally aware of the “redness”. How is it possible, indeed, to differentiate two behaviourally indistinguishable systems on the basis of the presence of a certain conscious element within them? All these questions are what we call The Hard Problem with Consciousness: there is no a specific method to separate systems endowed with the so-called consciousness from those which work unconsciously. Why isn’t there more progress in philosophy? David Chalmers, Royal Institute of Philosophy, London, December, 13th, 2013. [Mattia Sorgon] There has not been large collective convergence on the big questions of philosophy. Concerning the most fundamental issues, such as the mind-body problem, the access to the external world, or the principles of morality, the debate is still very intense and controversial. Therefore, philosophy has not already reached neither a definitive result on its major topics and every theoretical perspective is still a viable position within the debate.