The true nature of the physical

David Chalmers, Daniel Stoljar, Gregg Rosenberg

Anand Rangarajan Says: July 30th, 2006 at 7:23 pm Andy Smith said, “Nobody has even offered a coherent explanation of how our ordinary consciousness, which has a definite relationship to the brain, can be associated with the physical world.”

While this is somewhat true, recently analytic philosophers have started arguing that our ignorance regarding the true nature of the physical is responsible for the hard problem of consciousness. See Daniel Stoljar’s article entitled “Two Conceptions of the Physical” or his recent book “Ignorance and Imagination”

In particular, Stoljar’s “Two Conceptions…” article is required reading in most analytic philosophy departments. Taking into account Stoljar’s articles and David Chalmers’ earlier efforts in addressing the hard problem of consciousness, it is premature to assume that consciousness cannot be accommodated into the physical - for the simple reason that the physical itself is not well defined at present. Also for a dual aspect panpsychist approach to consciousness which clearly associates consciousness with the physical world, please see Gregg Rosenberg’s “A Place for Consciousness”