24 | New Scientist | 13 July 2019
Consciousness does in fact
pose a hard problem
22 June, p 34
From Guy Inchbald, Upton-upon-
Severn, Worcestershire, UK
Rowan Hooper, with help from
philosophers Patricia Churchland
and Daniel Dennett, does a great
disservice to “the hard problem”
in the theory of mind. Were
“qualia”, the experiential qualities
of consciousness, so easily
dismissed as the maunderings of
the spooky-minded, the problem
would never have become so
notoriously difficult.
Why do we experience
consciousness at all? Nothing in
any objective scientific theory of
physics or information accounts
for the subjective qualities of our
otherwise empirically measurable
experiences. In the integrated
information theory proposed
by Giulio Tononi, consciousness
is what information feels like
when it reaches a certain level
of sophistication. But the fact of
that feeling has no underpinning.
That is the hard problem.From Trevor Hussey, High
Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK
“What is consciousness?” isn’t
answered by saying how it is
produced and where in the brain
this happens, unless we start by
assuming we know the answer.
If it is just neural activity, there
is nothing more to explain. But
if I am sad, feeling guilt or in pain
and I describe the accompanying
physical goings-on in minute
detail, you wouldn’t know what I
was experiencing. What is missing
is the subjective experience: what
I am aware of and you aren’t.
We may want a naturalistic
explanation of consciousness
and not a “spooky non-biological”
account, but we need one that
preserves what is characteristic
of consciousness: the subjective
phenomena. This “hard problem”
isn’t solved by dismissing these
as illusory. For something to be
an illusion, it has to be observed –
that is to say, experienced.
Evolution has producedsomething of great selective
advantage using only the physical
stuff of the universe, but that also
involves subjective phenomena.
We know of consciousness only
by means of those phenomena,
which adds to the puzzle.From David Fitzgerald,
Margate, Kent, UK
It was interesting how much
of your article on the human
brain was littered with computer
analogies. I suspect some future
human brains will shake their
formidable heads at this, reflecting
on how each generation tries
to explain things with the
mechanism of their day.Singapore’s falsehood law
leaves the courts to decide
1 June, p 23
From Foo Chi Hsia,
High Commissioner for the
Republic of Singapore, London, UK
Donna Lu makes claims
about Singapore’s Protection
from Online Falsehoods and
Manipulation Bill (POFMB).
Minister for Education Ong Ye
Kung and other Singapore officials
have said that POFMB can’t affectexpressions of opinion, since
it covers only false statements
of fact. It follows existing
jurisprudence that defines what
a false statement of fact is. This
means that academic research
won’t be subject to POFMB so
doesn’t need to be exempted.
Inquiry in the humanities also
won’t be covered, as it is in the
domain of opinion, not fact.
Lu suggests that the bill gives
government free rein to ban any
information that the “state deems
to be false”. The bill prescribes
that Singapore’s courts, not its
government, are the final arbiters
of truth. Singapore welcomes
groundbreaking research and
the government is committed
to applying the law responsibly.
We aren’t seeking to set any global
precedent with this law, which is
designed for our own multiracial
and multireligious context.Remember that climate
concern goes way back
From the archives, 1 June
From Lucia Singer
Wantage, Oxfordshire, UK
In his article on how New Scientist
covered a proposed solution to thehole in the ozone layer in 1994,
Simon Ings says concern about
climate change was then the
“preserve of a fringe few”. Even
in the 1980s, global warming
was mainstream enough for my
teenage friends and me to dread
it alongside nuclear war and
mass unemployment.
This is important because
there were already climate change
deniers. Then, they said that the
planet wasn’t warming; now, they
can’t say this, so instead insist it is
a natural fluctuation. These people
are running behind the science,
throwing dust in the air to try to
obscure the facts. It is our duty to
point out that they were wrong in
the past so that we can decide how
much to trust them now.The importance of climate
change for Christians
22 June, p 24
From Peter Bennett,
Nantwich, Cheshire, UK
Graham Lawton notes the
potential for common ground
between science and religion
on climate change. The Anglican
church defines its mission in five
areas. The fifth, added in 1990, isViews You r le t te r s