The Hard Problems of Consciousness – What exactly is the problem ? From Logical Paradoxes to Constructivism

What is it like for you to be you? This question has long fascinated philosophers and has sparked many heated discussions. At the first conference Towards a Science of Consciousness in 1994 in Tucson, Arizona, philosopher David Chalmers coined the Easy and Hard Problems of Consciousness. While the Easy Problem concerns the mechanics of nerves and the brain, the Hard Problem is concerned with issues of phenomenal or subjective experience, in particular the ability to understand and study subjective experience as if it were a third-person “objective” phenomenon. Some philosophers, like e.g. John Searle, are committed to the so-called first–person point of view that phenomenal experience is intrinsically private and inaccessible to third person studies. Others, like Daniel Dennett, believe that it is possible to objectively capture everything about a person’s subjective experience by experimental analysis of anatomical and physiological correlates of subjective experience, as well as by including introspection into the data gathering process.