Klein, S. B. (2025). The flame that illuminates itself: A phenomenological analysis of human phenomenology. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 12(1), 142–150. doi:10.1037/cns0000420
[Abstract]In a recent set of articles (Klein et al., 2023; Klein & Loftus, 2024), my colleagues and I used the logic of adaptationism—the application of evolutionary principles to study the functional design of naturally selected systems (e.g., Klein et al., 2002)—to help make sense of the role natural selection played in the evolution of consciousness. To avoid well-known, seemingly intractable problems that accompany efforts to explain “how consciousness is possible in a world that consists in physical objects and their relations” (the so-called “hard problem of consciousness”), we limited investigation to the question of “why natural selection favored consciousness?” In the present article, I try to make amends for this evasion by addressing some of the conceptual challenges posed by the hard problem. Drawing on insights from Klein et al.’s (2023) evolutionary excursion into the why of consciousness, I identify a potential alteration in the referential identity of “subject” and “object” when they are taken as properties of a mental state, and discuss how these changes might offer insight into the how question of consciousness.
[Citing Place (1956)]  
Citing Place (1956) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
* The theoretical challenge of consciousness is called the “hard problem” — that is, how is experiential reality possible, given that the dictates of modern science demand that everything from molecules to minds is wholly physical (for reviews, see Chalmers, 1996; Crane, 2001; Crane & Mellor, 1990;Goff, 2017; Kammerer, 2019, 2022; Levine, 2001; Loar, 1990; McGinn, 2004; Seager, 2016; Strawson, 2009)? Some argue that the hard problem is, and will remain, intractable due to its incommensurability with the requirements of scientific method and explanation (e.g., Klein, 2020; Levine, 2003; Wright, 2007). Others attribute its intransigence to shortcomings of human mentation (e.g., Chomsky, 2016; McGinn, 1991; Plonitsky, 2010). Still others question whether the hard problem exists, arguing either (a) the solution already is at hand (e.g., Graziano, 2019, 2022; Kastrup, 2019; Tsuchiya, 2017) or (b) the problem is a misguided attempt to give substance to an illformed question (e.g., Carruthers, 2000; Dennett, 1991; Jackson, 2003; Weisberg, 2023). Footnote 3: Not all researchers accept that there is a hard problem to explain, embracing instead some version of psychoneural identity theory (e.g., Churchland, 1986; Crane, 1995; Kim, 1998; Place, 1956; Smart, 1959). Most identity theories of mind pivot on the idea that mental states and processes are identical to brain states and processes. By adopting this position, the identity theorist avoids the ontologically unattractive possibility that acceptance of consciousness as an aspect of reality requires either we broaden our assumptions about the nature of reality (e.g., Russell, 1921; Strawson, 2009) or jettison any hope for ontological monism (e.g., Chalmers, 1996; Descartes, 1984; Robinson, 2008). While the present article hardly is the place to debate this perennial issue in the philosophy of mind, my position is that consciousness cannot be “eliminated” by recourse to identity theories. It remains an unavoidable problem for any form of monistic materialism (e.g., Klein, 2016).