How I Dissolved the Hard Problem: A Counter-Hypothesis, an Inversion and Its Defence
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: I am aware that the title of this article may sound provocative, since the hard problem has long seemed insoluble. From the standpoint of my theory of consciousness, it no longer is. Moreover, in light of the many findings in neurobiology, cognitive science, behavioural science and related fields, Chalmers' theories seem somewhat outdated. The question of why living beings feel has been placed on a pedestal and kept in the scientific spotlight, which I find hard to understand, since dozens of equivalent questions could be asked, as the example of movement in the text shows. Asking such a question is not in itself a mistake. The mistake was to build a theory around it, a theory that put all kinds of feeling into one bag without even trying to separate them, although the knowledge needed to do so was already available at the time. The first part offers a counter-hypothesis to the First Law of Consciousness, which asserts the presence of consciousness: perhaps consciousness is a myth. It does not necessarily reflect the author's view, yet it does not seem entirely improbable. The second and third parts set out how, on the relational account itself, the hard problem of consciousness dissolves. The first part asks what would remain if consciousness were moved to the dictionary of myths, somewhere between Chimera and Cyclops. The proposed answer is an error of evolution, replicated across generations: an inherited illusion of personality. On the relational account, if the brain imagines that it is someone, it does so because someone else first treated it as someone, so the illusion, if it is one, is passed on like a flame kindled from another flame. Paradoxically, the personality formed in this process may be the most real protagonist of the story. The second part inverts Chalmers' hard problem. Consciousness is distinguished from sentience: feeling belongs to the starter package of life, while the "I" to whom feeling belongs is imprinted through relation. To ask why anything feels at all is to ask a question about life, not about consciousness. What Chalmers called easy is where consciousness lies, and what he called hard is where life lies. Two criteria keep the boundary: self-production marks life, and with it feeling; exceeding the pattern in relation marks consciousness. The third part answers the objection that the problem has only been moved, and discusses the analogy of movement and the question of "for whom".
Author: Włodarczyk, Mariusz
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225623617