Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers Hard Problem paradigm? Why ignore evolution?

Is the “Hard Problem” really that hard? Or is our imagination holding us back from honestly understanding how our human Flesh becomes Spirit?

This is a rather rough draft. Choppy and in need of reworking and is not recommended reading — unless you too find the “Hard Problem” a self-indulgent exercise in philosophical mysterianism — although your time would be much better spent reading:

Chalmers’ Hard Problem and the Living Moment of Now.

Thank you, Cc

I’ve had a long time frustrating conversation with a pal at CFI Forum that sometimes reminds me of various articles I’ve read over here about the origins and source of consciousness. Now I once again feel compelled to share my misgivings, and the reasoning behind them, regarding the Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers Hard Problem’s way looking at consciousness through the philosophical/theological lens — while striving to convey the need for a more down to Earth evolutionary-biology respecting approach to understanding our human consciousness.

CFI pal: The body mind divide.

I know your usual answer. I specifically asked, how does your definition compare to the words I quoted, the ones about the consciousness experience that we all have, the one that gives a window into the universe but not an experience of the entire physical universe.

The quote in question:

CFI pal: Key quote to me, after the guy asks his question, which is not that well-formed, then Sam Harris does a lot of unpacking and framing, and at 7:55 says:

… “Let’s admit that, there’s still all the rest of the stuff that I’m presumably not capable of being conscious of, there, all of that still seems to be in the dark somehow. Only materialism, some form of physicalism, seems to get at that difference, which is, there’s something that it’s like to be part of the universe, but it doesn’t seem like there’s something that it’s like to be another part. Even with respect to one’s own mind and brain, that dichotomy will be born out.”

He goes on to talk about the left and right hemispheres of the brain having different experiences while a neurosurgeon probes a cortex. That “difference” Sam is describing seems analogous to the Physical Reality-Human Mindscape divide.

Sorry, I didn’t hear Sam unpacking much and what he did say, felt like handwaving, rather than substantive. As for left/right brain analogous to the Physical Reality-Human Mindscape divide. Not even, brain is biological— the thoughts the brain helps produce are the Mindscape.

“How does my definition compare to the words?” But the words didn’t say much, so let me offer a simple rundown of major points that I have to convey.

Physical Reality ~~~ Human Mind divide Matter, Biology, Physical Interactions ~~~ Perceptions and Thoughts Senses, Body, Brain ~~~ Awareness, Consciousness, Introspection Flesh ~~~ Spirit

How can matter become thought ? Matter cannot become thought !

This is why appreciating Earth’s Evolution matters so critically.

Especially the matter of fact that you inhabit an evolved body. Seriously, over half a billion years of evolution are packed into your body plan, that is DNA with its mysterious powers. This body that is you, literally started as a tiny worm.

It already needed to be conscious of itself and surroundings way back then !

Consciousness has been one of nature’s main projects since the beginning of life — without recognizing that, philosophical “consciousness musing” remains talk for talk, reflecting desire and ego more than our living reality.

As for what is Qualia, sit with that question. What creates the unique sensation of experience?

Imagine the wave of NOW sweeping over Earth over time. Think of all that biology inside of your body busy with sensing, processing, transmitting a whole array of bio-chemo-electrical-neural-circulatory-lymphatic-interstitial-and whatnot systems doing the actual physical stuff of sensing, processing, handing off to brain and brain’s signals constantly cascading back to every crevice of our body.

How is all that activity not going to have a feeling attached to it? A feeling unlike any other memory, or dream one can experience. Qualia is the fleeting living moment, that our lives unfold within.

Back to origins of matter becoming consciousness and thoughts.

Earth created circumstances that enabled geology and chemistry and time to create little atomic machines. The Krebs cycle. It quite literally harnessed electricity, invented biology and the potential for life. (This is where the “Hard Problem” rightly belongs! Surprise, chemistry resolves the challenge.)

In short order biology created life, then ATP and mitochondria appeared, after eons creating complex cells that contained a level of self awareness, (as shown by their self-serving behavior, seeking, rejecting, moving, advantageous consuming, advantageous excreting, self-protection, etc.), simply because it was a prerequisite for survival.

Literally a no brainer.

Anyone seriously wanting to understand “consciousness” needs to sit with that physical reality for a while and allow it to soak in.

Stop with all the intellectual flights of fancy dancing and profit. Realize we are evolved biological animals — along with understanding what that means, evolutionarily and biologically. There you’ll find the pieces of understanding needed for establishing a solid constructive relationship with your warring spirit and flesh.

All the philosophical distractions we can dream up, don’t touch that simple tough love reality.

Philosophy presents the world of our mind — philosophy is wonderful, but believing we can find serious answers by ignoring physical reality, in favor of mind and intellectual gymnastics, has been a huge mistake. As the condition of our society demonstrates so horribly well.

(It took half a billion years for biology to hammer out the hardware that took us from an ameba’s already established consciousness to develop and refine our most spectacular consciousness — but the Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers paradigm dismisses all that with a wave, and categorization as the “Easy Problem’—trivial, barely worth acknowledging.

As stated Chalmers Hard Problem communicates more about attitude and philosophical arrogance, than it could ever convey about the processes of creature consciousness — what specifically makes our evolved senses, body, brain, so similar in so many respects, yet so spectacularly different in outcomes.

The Answers are in Evolution.)

{Oh, incidentally, it took simple cells some two billion years to hammer out the eukaryotic cells, that went on to make all complex life possible over the next half billion plus years. All unfolding one day at a time.}

• (Spirit as in drive to live and conscious awareness.)

If this Evolutionary bottom-up perspective resonates and you want to learn more, I recommend Michael Pollan’s:

**A World Appears — A Journey Into Consciousness.**

“… the fact we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, considering we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives — scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic — to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.”

updated March 29th.

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© Citizenchallenge

June 6th update.

I’ve been spending the past three months exchanging emails with a genuine bona fide philosophy professor. Getting some private tutoring to focus on what I keep failing to grasp about the entire Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers paradigm.

It’s been interesting and enjoyable and frustrating, though clarifying — turns out, philosophy doesn’t have much explanatory power, beyond conviction and rethoric.

On Fri, Jun 5, 2026 at 7:01 AM [Professor]

Good morning.

I’m not doing riddles.

Your view seems to be that A and B have different kinds of properties, but A becomes B. That doesn’t make any sense.

My bookshelf with books has properties different from my bookshelf without books: It weighs more. But it’s the same kind of property in both cases, and I can understand how one becomes the other. I don’t fully understand how the properties of a TI-82 calculator can explain the things my laptop does, but that’s because I never studied enough electronics; I know they are the same kinds of properties, and I think I could learn if I needed to.

But the different properties of your A and B are as different as the different properties of Tennyson’s poetry and a saltshaker. It’s 0% clear how the former can become the latter.

(Professor)

Unfortunately, that email is much like the past couple, so it’s feeling like the end of our road.

Dear Professor,

Is that the sum total of what you have to share?

An idealized analogy, to fit an idealized mental algebraic formula that justifies our sense of human exceptionalism and dominion over our planet and all its inhabitants?

Likening biological creature Evolution to “technological evolution” simply underscores a failure of imagination and unfamiliarity with the physical evidence scientists continue unraveling. Dismissing all those scientific insights as the easy problem, is an easy way out of taking responsibility.

Why am I not allowed to have any explanatory expectations of philosophy?

Sorry,

Thank you for your time,

Peter

I like the professor, he’s been generous with his time, sharp, patient and easy with the tough love, which is fine by me. He knows I blog and has given me permission to share his name, but I choose to keep it anonymous because its the D-N-C intellectual construct and its words that I have my issue with. I fear including his name would simply blur that distinction.