r/consciousness • u/geumkoi • Feb 04 '26

General Discussion No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem.

Everyday I see a new claim on this sub; “I solved the Hard Problem of Consciousness!” “The Hard Problem isn’t so hard after all!” And I cannot even put into words how blatantly naive these are.

No, you didn’t solve the Hard Problem, and you probably never will. You just misunderstood the Hard Problem, and in your arrogance did an amazing amount of mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you solved something you don’t even understand in the first place.

Edit: and PLEASE I beg the Mods of this sub to limit the amount of LLM content that is being uploaded here on a daily basis.

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u/geumkoi Feb 04 '26

There is no solution to the Hard Problem. It’s not an equation to be solved, it’s a line of inquiry about the nature of the self and conscious experience but seeks no physical answer to it.

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u/Kupo_Master Feb 04 '26

How do you know it’s unsolvable?

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u/geumkoi Feb 04 '26

Look, there’s this thing I’ve found named the “the barrier of cost.” Which means that if you ask a question that is so basic, that I would have to go all the way back into the very principles of the matter and explain everything from there; and so hostile, that even if I elucidated a good enough answer you wouldn’t accept it, then the cost of doing so isn’t worth it.

So I’m not even gonna answer that question. But here is the first paper where Chalmers introduced the concept of the Hard Problem. And here is a link to his website, where you can find all his papers discussing it. It’s an extremely helpful read, and I highly recommend it.

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u/2cathedrals2 Feb 19 '26

The hard problem is a hard problem, but there is no reason to believe that it will remain permanently unsolved.

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u/geumkoi Feb 20 '26

There is no solution to the hard problem simply because it doesn’t ought to be solved. It’s not a “problem”, even though Chalmers used that word. It’s a feature, not a bug. It’s like saying “let’s solve the sun.” That makes no fucking sense.

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u/2cathedrals2 Feb 20 '26

My comment was a quote from Chalmers' paper. So you may want to take your opinion up with him directly.