Spacetime Holism and the Hard Problem of Consciousness

• Main Author: Winkler, Franz-Gunter
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0094-243X
• DOI: 10.1063/1.2216656

We suppose that the reason for the obvious hardness of the so-called hard problem of consciousness lies in two implicit assumptions characteristic of western thinking. The assumption of the fundamental existence of the object and the assumption of the fundamental existence of the self cannot both be valid, if something like a psychophysical link is taken for granted. Other than monistic approaches that are incompatible with one of the two assumptions, we strictly reject both assumptions. Spacetime holism, which in the first place is a view of the material world, can be extended by an assumption on the nature of consciousness, thus providing the basis for a non-reductive solution to the hard problem of consciousness.