Beyond the Semantic Gap: A Revolutionary Response to the Deepest Objections Against Consciousness Theories
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The most profound objections to consciousness theories—including Processual Experiential Realism—center on three fundamental challenges: the persistence of the semantic gap between physical and phenomenal concepts, the empirical inaccessibility of subjective content, and the risk of mere redescription rather than genuine explanation. This paper argues that these objections, while appearing devastating, actually point toward a revolutionary reconceptualization of explanation itself that dissolves rather than solves the traditional problems of consciousness studies. I demonstrate that the semantic gap objection assumes a false dichotomy between objective and subjective domains that disappears once we recognize consciousness as the fundamental medium of all explanation. The empirical inaccessibility objection conflates privacy with inaccessibility and fails to recognize the participatory nature of conscious investigation. The redescription objection assumes that genuine explanation must proceed through reductive analysis, but consciousness requires integrative understanding that transcends the reduction-explanation paradigm. Through a radical reconceptualization of explanation as participatory rather than reductive, I show how Processual Experiential Realism represents a genuine paradigm shift that dissolves the hard problem by revealing it as a pseudo-problem generated by inappropriate explanatory assumptions. This dissolution opens new possibilities for consciousness research that integrate first-person and third-person methodologies within a unified scientific framework.
Author: Tan, Kwan Hong
Institution: Singapore University of Social Sciences
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6912190304
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