生活中的“难题”

S. Walker, P. Davies
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引用次数: 13

摘要

在科学中,很少有像生命和意识的本质这样令人困惑的开放性问题。目前,我们对这两方面都没有太多的科学研究。在意识的例子中,似乎很明显,某些方面最终会违背还原论的解释,最重要的是感质现象——粗略地说,我们作为观察者的主观经验。我们为什么会有诸如闻到咖啡的味道或天空的蓝色之类的感觉,这是先天的,远不是显而易见的。主观经验对于智力的进化并不是必需的(例如,我们可以成为哲学意义上的僵尸,从外部看,我们的内在并没有发生任何变化,但我们的功能却一样好)。即使我们最终成功地揭示了对大脑中每个神经元的连接和放电的完整的机械理解,它也可能无法告诉我们关于思想、感觉和体验事物的感觉。我们的现象体验是意识的唯一方面,即使在原则上,它们似乎也不能被简化为已知的物理原理。这使得查尔默斯把对我们主观体验的精确解释定义为“意识的难题”。相应的“容易的问题”(实际上不那么容易)与绘制各种经验的神经关联相关联。通过将注意力集中在主观经验问题上,查尔默斯强调了基于我们目前的理解,意识真正难以解释的方面。然而,这个问题绝不局限于哲学。查尔默斯提出的解决方案是,将主观意识视为一种不可约的、基本的心理属性,有自己的规律和原则。通过关注意识理论与我们的物质理论并立所需要的条件,可以期待取得进展,即使事实证明根本不需要一些新的东西。同样的道理也适用于生活。就生命而言,我们似乎更有可能把它理解为一种物理现象,而不是意识。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
The “Hard Problem” of Life
There are few open problems in science as perplexing as the nature of life and consciousness. At present, we do not have many scientific windows into either. In the case of consciousness, it seems evident that certain aspects will ultimately defy reductionist explanation, the most important being the phenomenon of qualia – roughly speaking, our subjective experience as observers. It is a priori far from obvious why we should have experiences such as the sensation of the smell of coffee or the blueness of the sky. Subjective experience isn't necessary for the evolution of intelligence (we could, for example, be zombies in the philosophical sense and appear to function just as well from the outside with nothing going on inside ). Even if we do succeed in eventually uncovering a complete mechanistic understanding of the wiring and firing of every neuron in the brain, it might tell us nothing about thoughts, feelings, and what it is like to experience something. Our phenomenal experiences are the only aspect of consciousness that appears as though they cannot, even in principle , be reduced to known physical principles. This led Chalmers to identify pinpointing an explanation for our subjective experience as the “hard problem of consciousness.” The corresponding “easy problems” (in practice not so easy) are associated with mapping the neural correlates of various experiences. By focusing attention on the problem of subjective experience, Chalmers highlighted the truly inexplicable aspect of consciousness, based on our current understanding. The issue, however, is by no means confined to philosophy. Chalmers’ proposed resolution is to regard subjective consciousness as an irreducible, fundamental property of mind, with its own laws and principles. Progress can be expected to be made by focusing on what would be required for a theory of consciousness to stand alongside our theories for matter, even if it turns out that something fundamentally new is not necessary. The same may be true for life. With the case of life, it seems as though we have a better chance of understanding it as a physical phenomenon than we do with consciousness.
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