Once consciousness's functions are explained, is the hard question solved?
ctjlewis · x · 2026-09-03
A reshared academic discussion: once the functions of consciousness are explained, is the question 'what is consciousness' thereby solved? Neuroscientist Floris de Lange backs Daniel Dennett's materialist and functionalist view — consciousness is fully explicable via its functions and physical mechanisms, with no extra 'hard problem' left over. The poster pushes back: is there anything more 'mysterious', perhaps unscientifically so, about consciousness? This is the classic functionalism-vs-mysterianism debate in philosophy of mind, directly relevant to whether machines could ever be conscious and how we define intelligence itself.
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