we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. QUESTION 11 In passage 11, Chalmers outlines a problem, as he sees it. Which of the following is the best statement of his view? A) Almost everyone thinks experience arises ‘from a physical basis’. But this is obviously impossible – since objectively unreasonable, no good explanation can be offered, etc. Thus, almost everyone believes something that cannot possibly be true. B) ‘It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience.’ Yet it is impossible to know which organisms those are, since all we can know about organisms are physical facts, and it is ‘objectively unreasonable’ to think that experience arises from physical processing. C) Experience undeniably actually exists. Yet no explanation has ever been offered of how it could possibly exist; since the thing that, it is generally agreed, must explain experience – namely, physical processing – doesn’t seem to explain it, so far as anyone can tell. D) It is clear why visual and auditory information-processing must be accompanied by experience. (If you can’t have the sensation of middle C, you can’t auditorily process middle C. If you can’t appreciate the subjective quality of deep blue, you can’t visually process deep blue.) Experience obviously must accompany function. But why is it the case, then, that experience can only arise from physical processes, since it seems that functionality and physicality are distinct? E) Given that all that we undeniably know are the facts of experience, how do we know that physical processes even exist? Hence, how can we know how the undeniable facts of experience arise from deniable physical processes?
PH1101E/GEM1004M Passage 12, from David Chalmers’ “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness”: At this point some are tempted to give up, holding that we will never have a theory of conscious experience. McGinn (1989), for example, argues that the problem is too hard for our limited minds; we are "cognitively closed" with respect to the phenomenon. Others have argued that conscious experience lies outside the domain of scientific theory altogether. I think this pessimism is premature. This is not the place to give up; it is the place where things get interesting. When simple methods of explanation are ruled out, we need to investigate the alternatives. Given that reductive explanation fails, nonreductive explanation is the natural choice. QUESTION 12 Assuming what passage 12 says is correct, it would be reasonable to infer which of the following (and, yes, it’s OK if you have no idea who McGinn is): A) McGinn has an elaborate theory of conscious experience, based on the idea that our minds are ‘cognitively closed’ with respect to the phenomena.
- Summer '19