Berent Iris
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Neurosci Conscious. 2024 Apr 3;2024(1):niae016. doi: 10.1093/nc/niae016. eCollection 2024.
Consciousness arguably presents a "hard problem" for scholars. An influential position asserts that the "problem" is rooted in ontology-it arises because consciousness "is" distinct from the physical. "Problem intuitions" are routinely taken as evidence for this view. In so doing, it is assumed that (i) people do not consider consciousness as physical and (ii) their intuitions faithfully reflect what exists (or else, intuitions would not constitute evidence). New experimental results challenge both claims. First, in some scenarios, people demonstrably view consciousness as a physical affair that registers in the body (brain). Second, "problem intuitions" are linked to psychological biases, so they cannot be trusted to reflect what consciousness is. I conclude that the roots of the "hard problem" are partly psychological. Accordingly, its resolution requires careful characterization of the psychological mechanisms that engender "problem intuitions."
意识无疑给学者们带来了一个“难题”。一种有影响力的观点认为，这个“难题”源于本体论——它的出现是因为意识“本质上”有别于物理实体。“难题直觉”通常被视为这一观点的证据。在这样做的过程中，人们假定：（i）人们不认为意识是物理性的；（ii）他们的直觉如实地反映了实际存在的事物（否则，直觉就不会构成证据）。新的实验结果对这两种说法都提出了挑战。首先，在某些情况下，人们明显地将意识视为一种在身体（大脑）中体现的物理现象。其次，“难题直觉”与心理偏差有关，所以不能相信它们能反映意识的本质。我的结论是，“难题”的根源部分在于心理因素。因此，要解决这个问题，就需要仔细描述产生“难题直觉”的心理机制。
