The hard problem of the origin of phenomenal consciousness in a physical universe is aggravated by a simplistic and uncritical concept of the physical realm which still predominates in much discussion of the subject. David Chalmers is correct in claiming that phenomenal experience is logically independent of a physical description of the world, but his proposal for a natural supervenience of experience on a physical substrate is misguided. His statements about machine consciousness and the role of information are especially compromised. A careful analysis of physical concepts indicates that the hard problem as originally proposed is insoluble but also fortunately based on misconceptions. Modern physics suggests a more sophisticated and richer ontology which will be essential for a deeper understanding of our rapidly growing knowledge of psychology and neuroscience.
Explanations are of various kinds.
They vary with the needs that call for them. The current need to explain consciousness expresses not only curiosity about its causes but a wider uncertainty about its place in the general scheme of things. For much of this century, naive dogmatic materialism suggested that consciousness is a trivial matter with effectively no place in the world. Yet the behaviourists attempt to ignore our experience altogether has not proved workable. Scientists are therefore now trying to give it reputable standing by squeezing it in at the margins either of neurobiology or of some branch of physics, in the hope that this will make it scientific .