Note on the easy and hard problems of consciousness Note on the easy and hard problems of consciousness One of the crucial aspects of the philosophy is to follow through on a proposition long known, summed in the paradox of Hui Shih that a white horse is not a horse. What we have is the common problem of applying general terms to specific instances. In the model of knowledge this emerges as a crucial distinction, in that what we experience, what we live are unique and specific instances of .
Ideas come to be through the process of grouping instances of according to their properties.
The crucial hypothesis underlying this process is that ideas are the creation of species and did not predate the species, in this instance the species being humanity. Thus follows the idea the framework of human thought as it is today is the result of progressive unfolding and elaboration and creation, beginning at first with the simplest classifications, those being of such things the earliest people saw and to which they related. This would of its own postulate that the earliest paintings would be of animals or people, and would likely be quite stylistic and without full depth or perspective, since these are not intrinsic but would represent refinement of skill. Ideas thus come to be, and they have a social and psychological reality equal to the physical reality of the white horse. Hence when we talk of a horse not being a white horse we do indeed refer to two quite different objects of equal reality and power to effect us.