# Contested concept: hard problem of consciousness

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: semantic
- **Diagnosis**: Disputes about whether the hard problem exists often talk past each other because the participants assign it different content: metaphysical, epistemic, conceptual, or scientific.
- **Canonical**: `/concept/hard problem of consciousness` (data: `/concept/hard problem of consciousness.json`)

## Senses in use
- **Collection of easy problems or a pseudo-problem, category mistake, or artifact** — used in 4 claim(s)
- **Conceptual problem with our concepts, not a scientific problem** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Epistemic explanatory gap only, not an ontological gap** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Ontological problem: shows consciousness is not physical** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Question of why the functions or neural processes give rise to experience at all, distinct from NCC and 'pretty hard' problems** — used in 3 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [The hard problem of consciousness results from a "category mistake"](/claim/claim_35c028bc5da2.md) _(sense: Collection of easy problems or a pseudo-problem, category mistake, or artifact)_
- [There is no hard problem of explaining qualia over and above the problem of explaining causal functions.](/claim/claim_79ccec690d99.md) _(sense: Collection of easy problems or a pseudo-problem, category mistake, or artifact)_
- [Levine does not think that the explanatory gap [between our understanding of the physical world and our understanding of consciousness] mea…](/claim/claim_8159a0fc6210.md) _(sense: Epistemic explanatory gap only, not an ontological gap)_
- [Even after all the relevant functional facts are explicated, there will still remain a further question: "Why is the performance of these f…](/claim/claim_834b792531ea.md) _(sense: Question of why the functions or neural processes give rise to experience at all, distinct from NCC and 'pretty hard' problems)_
- [If the hard problem is a genuine obstacle, it follows that physicalism must be false.](/claim/claim_96718aa74d96.md) _(sense: Ontological problem: shows consciousness is not physical)_
- [The hard problem is a meaningful conceptual problem.](/claim/claim_9f6f9b0734c8.md) _(sense: Conceptual problem with our concepts, not a scientific problem)_
- [The explanatory gap argument doesn't demonstrate a gap in nature, but a gap in our understanding of nature.](/claim/claim_a928d1044e63.md) _(sense: Epistemic explanatory gap only, not an ontological gap)_
- [[Research on neural correlates of consciousness] does not address the question of *why* [neurobiological mechanisms] should give rise to co…](/claim/claim_ab607c1f2ab5.md) _(sense: Question of why the functions or neural processes give rise to experience at all, distinct from NCC and 'pretty hard' problems)_
- [Logan Ohm (2025) treats the hard problem of consciousness as a philosophical artifact](/claim/claim_b4592530aea3.md) _(sense: Collection of easy problems or a pseudo-problem, category mistake, or artifact)_
- [The hard problem [of consciousness] is not indicative of a genuine ontological gap between consciousness and the physical world.](/claim/claim_ba56ce1a5ff8.md) _(sense: Epistemic explanatory gap only, not an ontological gap)_
- [Chalmers thinks that the hard problem of consciousness does show that consciousness is not physical.](/claim/claim_bf18b2644dc4.md) _(sense: Ontological problem: shows consciousness is not physical)_
- [[Integrated information theory's] proposed explanation is in fact for what [Michael Cerullo] dubs (following Scott Aaronson) the "Pretty Ha…](/claim/claim_c21e5cfece3b.md) _(sense: Question of why the functions or neural processes give rise to experience at all, distinct from NCC and 'pretty hard' problems)_
- [[Pinker] agree[s] with Dennett that [the hard problem] is not a meaningful scientific problem.](/claim/claim_c4257359a4c3.md) _(sense: Conceptual problem with our concepts, not a scientific problem)_
- [It is futile to hope for a solution [to the hard problem] precisely because it is a conceptual problem, or, more accurately, a problem with…](/claim/claim_c7276e101c80.md) _(sense: Conceptual problem with our concepts, not a scientific problem)_
- [Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland, among others, believe that the hard problem [of consciousness] is best seen as a collection of easy…](/claim/claim_d0aef50701b4.md) _(sense: Collection of easy problems or a pseudo-problem, category mistake, or artifact)_
- [Consciousness, then, must not be purely physical.](/claim/claim_deb12adfd920.md) _(sense: Ontological problem: shows consciousness is not physical)_