FINAL VERSION, SEPTEMBER 2022

Forthcoming in Thought: Its Origin and Reach, Essays for Mark Sainsbury, edited by Alex
Grzankowski, Routledge 2023.

A NEW SOLUTION TO THE HARD PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Michael Tye
The University of Texas at Austin

It is widely supposed that there is a special problem presented by consciousness, a

problem so special and puzzling that it merits the title “the hard problem of consciousness”

(Chalmers 1995). In what follows, I shall argue that while there is indeed a problem presented

by consciousness, it is not unique to consciousness; further, a solution is available. My

discussion is divided into four parts. I begin with some observations about rigid designators and

the almost universally accepted thesis, deriving from Kripke’s work in the 1970s, of the

necessity of identity. In the second part, I turn to appeals to modal properties on behalf of the

necessity of identity. The conclusion I draw from the discussion in these parts is that, contrary

to orthodoxy, there is no obvious difficulty with holding that identity statements in which the

identity sign is flanked by rigid designators are sometimes contingent. The third part of the

essay advocates a view of consciousness I call “contingentism”. It is shown that contingentism

naturally extends to the so-called “secondary qualities” of objects. The final section takes up

the hard problem directly. It compares the hard problem of consciousness to counterpart

problems presented by colors and other secondary qualities; it is suggested that these

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problems are structurally very similar and that once we become contingentists, the hard

problem has a straightforward and satisfying solution.1

1. Rigid designators and the Necessity of Identity

The usual argument for the thesis that identity statements in which the identity sign is flanked

by rigid designators are necessary is very simple: a rigid designator designates the same entity

in all possible worlds. So, if designators ‘F’ and ‘G’ are both rigid, and they designate the same

entity in the actual world, they designate the same entity in all possible worlds. So, if ‘F=G’ is

true in the actual world, it is necessarily true. 2

This reasoning, seductive though it is, is invalid. Suppose that in each possible world Wk,

‘F’ designates F. Then ‘F’ is rigid: it designates the same entity in all possible worlds. Suppose

1 For previous attempts to solve the hard problem, see, for example, Balog 2012, Block and

Stalnaker 1999, Papineau 2002, Perry 2001, Tye 1999. For critique, see Chalmers 2006.

2 Following Kripke (1971, 1972/80), many distinguished philosophers accept this argument. See,

for example, Boyd (1980), Salmon (2005), Soames (2002). Gibbard (1975) has a more nuanced

position. He claims, contra Kripke, that it makes no sense to talk of designators as rigid in

themselves. Rather they are rigid relative to sortals. ‘Goliath’, for example, is statue rigid (it

denotes the same statue in all possible worlds). ‘Lumpl’ is lump rigid (it denotes the same lump

of clay in all worlds). Once rigidity is relativized in this way, Gibbard claims that there can be

contingently true identity statements in which the identity sign is flanked by rigid designators,

e.g. ‘Goliath = Lumpl’.

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next that in each world Wk, ‘G’ designates G. Then ‘G’ likewise is rigid. Suppose finally that in

the actual world (W1), F is identical with G, as shown below:

‘F’ ‘G’

F F F F F F == G G G G G G

Worlds: Wn. Wn-1 Wn -2 ………… W1 …

W1. ……….. Wn-2 Wn -1 Wn

Patently, it does not follow from these claims that F is identical with G in each of possible

worlds, W1, W2, …. Wn. Consistent with the rigidity of ‘F’ and the rigidity of ‘G’, it can be simply a

contingent truth that F is identical with G. 3

It might be replied that since F = G in the actual world, we have that G = F in the actual

world (via symmetry). Given that G = F in the actual world and F = F in each non-actual possible

world, Wk it follows via the transitivity of identity that G = F in each non-actual possible world

Wk. So, by symmetry again, F = G in every possible world, and ‘F=G’ is necessarily true after all.

This again is unpersuasive. The revised argument assumes that identity is transitive

across possible worlds.4 That is a substantive thesis, however, independent of the appeal to

rigidity. Why should it be accepted? What all should accept is the following principle:

(Tr) ☐∀x,y,z((x=y & y=z)→x=z).

3
This claim is endorsed by Schwartz in his 2013. See also Gallois 1986.

4 For an appeal to the transitivity of identity, see Burgess 2014.

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(Tr), however, tells us that within each possible world, identity is transitive; but that is not

sufficient to show in the above way that identity statements with rigid designators flanking the

identity sign are always necessarily true, if, in fact, true.

In general, the transitivity of a relation within a world is not a guarantee of transitivity

across worlds. Consider, for example, the relation of being a part of. Suppose that in the actual

world, W1, small lump of matter, M, is a part of a leg, L, which is itself a part of a chair, C, where

‘M’, ‘L’ and ‘C’ are all rigid designators. Then, in W1, M is a part of C. Now consider a possible

world, W2, in which L is a part of C but L has a slightly different material constitution and lacks

M as a part. Given that M is a part of L in W1, and also that L is a part of C in W2, patently it does

not follow that M is a part of C in W2. So, being a part of, though transitive within a world, is

not transitive across worlds. Why shouldn’t we hold that identity is similarly limited?

There are many other relations that are transitive within a world but not across worlds.

Indeed, this is the most common case. Are there uncontroversial examples of relations that are

transitive across possible worlds? There are. Consider the relation of being divisible by.

Another example is that of being an ancestor of, though here we need to restrict the worlds to

those that contain the relevant relata. Where there is transitivity across worlds, the relata have

the relation essentially. So, if the advocate of Kripke’s argument appeals to the transitivity of

identity across worlds, this already assumes what the argument purports to prove: the

necessity of identity. The argument thus is either a non-sequitur or it begs the question.

Perhaps it will now be said that transitivity across possible worlds is not needed for the

argument to go through. All that is required is the validity of inferences of the following type:

The A = the B

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 The B = the C

So,

The A = the C.

To see this, we can reason as follows:

(1) The entity ‘F’ designates in each non-actual possible world = the entity ‘F’ designates in

the actual world (via the rigidity of ‘F’).

(2) The entity ‘F’ designates in the actual world = the entity ‘G’ designates in the actual

world (by hypothesis).

So,

(3) The entity ‘F’ designates in each non-actual possible actual world = the entity ‘G’

designates in the actual world.

So,

(4) ‘F = G’ is necessarily true.

The problem here is again that if identity is not transitive across possible worlds, then from

a claim of the form

The thing ‘P’ designates in world 1 = the thing ‘Q’ designates in world 2

and a claim of the form

The thing ‘Q’ designates in world 2 = the thing ‘R’ designates in world 3

we are not entitled to infer that

The thing ‘P’ designates in world 1 = the thing ‘R’ designates in world 3.

So, we may not infer (3) from (1) and (2), nor (5) above from (3) and (4), and the inference

pattern (the A = the B, the B = the C, so the A = the C) is not universally valid.

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 The same point can be made about an inference of the same general sort using the

relation of being a part of in place of identity and an appeal to a corresponding argument

pattern. Again, the pattern is only valid if part of is transitive across worlds, which it is not.

I conclude that the necessitarian thesis is not established by appeal to rigid designators.

Of course, if it is supposed that some identity statements with rigid designators are necessary

and some are contingent, the question arises as to how are we to decide which is which. The

answer is simple enough: if we can imagine a given true identity statement with rigid

designators having been false (counterfactually), then the identity statement is contingently

true. If we find, upon reflection that we cannot imagine the statement having been false (while

accepting that it is, in fact, true) then the identity statement is necessary. “Water is H2O”, thus,

is necessarily true, assuming it is true. Upon reflection, we find that we cannot imagine it having

been false, given that it is in fact true; for where we think we so imagine it, we realize that what

we are really imagining is something else, something merely with the appearance of water but

a different chemical composition. By contrast, “Pain is physical state S” is contingently true, if it

is true at all, notwithstanding the rigidity of ‘pain’ and (let us suppose) “physical state S”; for we

can easily imagine it false. Here, we can indeed imagine something with the appearance of

pain, something experienced as pain, in the absence of the relevant physical state S, but in

imagining this, we are imagining pain itself without S.5

5 Ned Block points out to me that physicalists might respond to this point by saying that we

can’t really imagine any counterfactual scenario in which pain isn’t S, if pain is S in actual fact.

What we ‘imagine’ is only the actual world turning out in such a way that pain is present

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 Why should there be this difference here? The term ‘water’ is a natural kind term: it

picks out the same natural kind in all possible worlds. This follows from the character of the

concept it expresses: the concept water is a natural kind concept. So, if ‘water’ picks out the

kind, H2O, in the actual world, it does so, in all possible worlds. The term ‘pain’ is not a natural

kind term, however, at least to the following extent: pain doesn’t have a hidden nature or

essence as water does discoverable by empirical investigation.6 This is something we know a

priori by reflecting upon the concept pain. To accept this is perfectly compatible with holding

that pain is the same as a physical state in the actual world. What it requires is only that pain

not be the same as that physical state in all other possible worlds too.

Admittedly, there are those who will insist that we also know a priori that the term

‘pain’ does not pick out anything physical at all even in the actual world. But this again is a

without S, and that is a mere epistemic possibility. My response is more concessive. I accept the

widely held intuition that we can imagine a metaphysically possible world in which pain occurs

without S. Indeed, I accept that we can imagine a world with disembodied conscious

beings. And, as noted, I take this as a reason for supposing that the identity between pain and

S is contingent. The physicalist who takes the line Block suggests seems to me to be in a

precarious position. Compare: I say I can imagine a world in which there are flying saucers. You

respond: no, you can’t imagine a counterfactual scenario containing any such things. That isn’t

metaphysically possible. All you can ‘imagine’ is the actual world turning out to contain flying

saucers. I don’t find that response plausible.

6 I return to this point at the end of section 4.

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substantive thesis that the physicalist obviously will resist. The truth here, she should say, is

that pain does not have a physical nature. The truth is not that pain has a nonphysical nature.

The so-called “thesis of revelation” goes too far. It is indeed revealed to us by our acquaintance

with pain, and reflection on that acquaintance, that pain lacks a physical nature (essence). Even

so, according to the physicalist, in the actual world, pain is a physical phenomenon.7

2. Modal Properties and the Necessity of Identity

Many authors appeal to modal identity-involving properties in arguing for the necessity of

identity. It is usually agreed that everything is necessarily self-identical, formalized: ∀x□(x=x).

From this, it is inferred, concerning some specific object a, that it has the property of being

necessarily identical to a: □a=a. From this, it is inferred via Leibniz’ Law, (the thesis that if x = y

7
It may be said that if pain lacks a physical nature, then since the physical state with which the

physicalist wishes to identify pain has a physical nature, this immediately shows, by an

application of Leibniz’ Law, that pain is not a physical phenomenon. If what is meant by ‘nature’

here is essence, as above, then this argument involves appeal to a modal property, in which

case, see section 2 below. If what is meant by ‘’nature’ is only make-up or composition, then

the physicalist, of course, will deny the claim that pain lacks a physical nature. In the actual

world, pain has a physical composition even though in some other worlds, it does not.

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then every property x has y has and vice-versa), hereafter LL, that if a = b, then □a=b.8 Given LL,

then, supposedly the necessity of identity follows.

This inference involves strong unspoken presuppositions. Everything has the property of

being self-identical, but only a has the property of being identical to a. There is just the one

general property of self-identity. But there are as many distinct specific properties as there are

objects. The general property (self-identity) is distinct from any of the specific properties (like

being a), and it is inferred that possession of the first ensures possession of the second.

Similarly, there is a universally agreed upon sentence-modifier claim, that, necessarily,

everything is self-identical. But this, of course, is distinct from the predicate-modifier claim that

everything is necessarily self-identical. Further, the inference from the latter claim to the

possession of a number of specific properties, like that, for a, of being necessarily identical to a

can be resisted.

To elaborate this last point, consider once again pain and physical state S, and the claim

that although pain is S, it might not have been. Pain is self-identical actually and

counterfactually; so is S. Pain is pain in every world, and S is S in every world. We have thus the

necessity of self-identity. What is much less obvious is the view that, for example, in every

world pain is identical to that to which it is actually identical. My point is that we can accept the

general property of self-identity and the necessity of self-identity, while rejecting the necessity

of the specific property that is supposed to flow from it. A necessitarian about identity would

need to provide a non-question-begging explanation of why this position is misguided.

8 An argument of this sort appears in Kripke 1971, Wiggins 1975.

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 Perhaps it will be replied that predicates like “is necessarily F” and “is necessarily

identical to a” express distinctively modal properties. Consider pain again. Pain is necessarily

painful. The physical state S with which it is, supposedly, contingently identical (assuming it is in

fact identical with S), is not necessarily painful. So, pain has a modal property, that of being

necessarily painful, that S lacks. So, LL tells us that they are distinct things.

In response, it is worth noting initially that where a predicate involves a modifier, the

modifier does not always operate on the predicate so as to express a property. In some cases, it

indicates rather a way that the property expressed by the predicate is possessed. For example,

in the sentence “7 is necessarily prime”, “necessarily” is plausibly viewed as marking how the

property of being prime is possessed. On this view, the sentence does not say that 7 possesses

the property of being necessarily prime; it says rather that 7 necessarily possesses the property

of being prime.9 Here are two more examples. Being possibly happy is not a way of being

happy. Rather, the relevant property is being happy, and “possibly” merely serves to indicate

that it is possibly possessed. In “Samantha is not tall,” “not” is best taken not to attribute the

property of being non-tall to Samantha but rather as indicating that Samantha is such that it is

not the case that she has the property of being tall. The sentence thus denies that Samantha

has a certain property rather than asserting that she has one.

Of course, some might say that in this last example if Samantha is such that it is not the

case that she has the property of being tall, she has the further property of being such that it is

9 There is no obvious reason why we should countenance a property of being necessarily prime

over and above the property of being prime. More on this shortly.

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not the case that she has the property of being tall. But this move can be resisted. After all, if

we do say this then should we not also say that if a thing has the property of being red, it

thereby also has the further property of having the property of being red, and so on

indefinitely? Surely not. So, why say that if an object necessarily possesses the property F, it

thereby also possesses the property of necessarily possessing the property F?

My general point, then, is that adverbs, including modal adverbs, are at least sometimes

not formers of property-specifying expressions. The necessitarian therefore needs to show that

modal adverbs do form property-specifying expressions in the LL style arguments under

consideration. On the alternative view I am suggesting, modally modified predicates instead

mark how non-modal properties are possessed. Thus, the claim that pain is necessarily painful

can be understood, I am supposing, not as saying that pain has the modal property of being

necessarily painful but rather as saying that pain necessarily has the property of being painful.

In this respect, it is like the claim that Samantha is not tall.

It is also worth observing that, on the face of it, there is, in everyday contexts, no

important distinction marked by locating ‘necessarily’ after the copula rather than before. ‘Pain

is necessarily painful’ seems to say the same thing as ‘Pain necessarily is painful’. By contrast,

‘John is unusually happy’ evidently says something quite different from ‘John unusually is

happy’. This is because ‘unusually’ functions as a predicate modifier in the one case and as a

sentence operator in the other. Why do we not get something corresponding in the pain

example? The answer, I suggest, is that in both cases, ‘necessarily’ is functioning in the same

way: either as a sentence operator or as a predicate operator. Given that ‘necessarily’

elsewhere is patently a sentence operator, the most parsimonious view of how ‘necessarily’

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functions in the pain example is the sentence operator one. And that reading can plausibly be

taken to eschew any modal property.

The upshot is that the claim that pain is necessarily painful can reasonably be taken not

to attribute a modal property but rather to present a modal way of having a non-modal

property. And so understood, the claim cannot be used to argue, via an application of LL, that

pain is not identical with physical state S.

I should also add at this stage that the conception of what a property is “is in

considerable disarray” (Lewis 1986: 55) anyway. This is not good news for a necessitarian who

appeals to LL as a basis for her position, since LL presupposes a serviceable notion of a

property. I’ll now very briefly indicate a view of properties which would class the predicates I

am discussing as ones that do not refer to distinctively modal properties, and hence as

unavailable for use in an LL-based argument. My aim is simply to show that appeal to LL

arguments requires a worked-out metaphysics of properties, and one which is different from

the causal view I now briefly describe.

On the causal view, properties are distinct iff they have different causal powers. 10 Being

sad is a different property from being happy, since having the latter leads to different effects

from having the former. Those who countenance modal properties, for example, being

necessarily painful, must say that they have different causal powers from any non-modal

properties. But what special causal powers could the proposed modal property of being

necessarily painful have that the non-modal property of being painful does not? None that I can

10 A view having some similarity to this is discussed, though not endorsed, by Oliver (1996).

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see. So, if the causal view of properties is correct, there are no distinctively de re modal

properties.

This is not intended as a serious contribution to the very tricky question of the nature of

properties and how they relate to predicates. It is supposed to show only that a full defense of

the necessity of identity would need to argue for an appropriate account of properties, one

according to which modal adverbs combine with predicates to form expressions that refer to

modal properties.

It is open to the advocate of the necessity of identity to respond to this criticism by

saying now that it was a mistake at the outset to appeal to the usual version of LL involving

properties. Instead, what is really needed, she may say, is a principle of this sort: if x = y then

whatever is true of x is true of y and vice-versa. On this version of LL, we need not involve

ourselves in the tricky issue of property identity. It suffices for us to note that since it is true of

object, a, that necessarily it is identical with a, this must also be true of object, b, if b is identical

with a. From this it follows that if b is identical with a, necessarily b is identical with a.

My reply is as follows. If x = y then, as all agree, x and y share all the same

properties. There are no modal properties, however, I claim. Rather there are modal ways of

having properties and these may differ even if things are identical. How so? Well, if a

necessarily has property P then a has P in all worlds. Intuitively if a = b in the actual world, this

requires that b has P in the actual world. But there is no obvious reason why it should be

required that b have P in other worlds. On the face of it, the fact that a has property P in some

other world W and b doesn’t have P in that world is not relevant to the question of whether in

the actual world a = b. That fact shows only that it is not the case that a = b in world W. To insist

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otherwise, I suggest, is simply to assume at the outset that there can be no contingent

identities, and thus to beg the question.11 If this is correct, even given that a is identical with b,

it can be true of a that it necessarily has the property of being identical with a without it being

true of b that it necessarily has the property of being identical with a.

It is also worth noting that the principle that if x = y then whatever is true of x is true of y

and vice-versa seems open to counter-examples having nothing to do with modal contexts and

thus is not secure anyway. Here is one (due to Quine). Giorgione was so-called because of his

size; Barbarelli was not. Taking this at face value, something is true of Giorgione, namely that he

was so-called because of his size, which is not true of Barbarelli. Nonetheless, Giorgione is one

and the same as Barbarelli.

My general conclusion is that arguments that appeal to modal properties and/or LL, no

matter how stated or revised, are unconvincing.

3. Contingentism

Contingentism finds its origins in the views of Feigl, Place and Smart in the 1950s and 1960s.

These philosophers held that sensations are contingently identical with brain processes, where

sensations are understood to be conscious states such as pain or the visual experience of red.

11 Admittedly, if it is not the case that a = b in possible world W, then, given that ‘a’ and ‘b’ are

both rigid designators for a and b respectively, we may infer that it is not the case that a = b in

the actual world, but only if we also assume that identity is transitive across possible worlds.

That I have already suggested (in section 1), is an assumption that can reasonably be rejected.

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The identity here was taken to be contingent for two reasons: first, it was taken to be clear that

scientific type-type identities generally are contingent. Smart, for example, commented (in his

1959):

I can imagine that the electrical theory of lightning is false, that lightning is some sort of

optical phenomenon. I can imagine that lightning is not an electrical discharge. (p. 152)

Secondly, it was supposed that the fact that scientifically uninformed people can talk about

their sensations without knowing anything about their true nature, just as they can talk about

lightning without knowing its true nature, is to be explained by supposing that the thesis that

sensations are identical with brain processes is contingent, just as is the thesis that lightning is

an electrical discharge.

It is now generally accepted that these claims are mistaken. If in actual fact lightning is

an electrical discharge, it could not have been otherwise. When we suppose we have imagined

a counterfactual scenario in which lightning is not an electrical discharge, what we have really

imagined (given that lightning actually is an electrical discharge) is something else with the

appearance of lightning not being an electrical discharge (as in the earlier case of water and

H2O). The thesis that lightning is an electrical discharge is necessarily true, given that it is in fact

true. This thesis, of course, is an empirical one. No amount of a priori reflection on the concept

lightning will show it to be true. And this is why ordinary people can talk perfectly well about

lightning without knowing anything about the electrical theory of lightning. The supposition

that the identity here is contingent goes a step too far. The identity is necessary but a

posteriori.

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 The contingentist about consciousness agrees with the above remarks concerning

lightning and is happy to extend them to many other scientific identity statements. But the

contingent holds that the case of conscious mental states -- states such that there is something

it is like to undergo them -- is different. Here the claim is not that such states are contingently

identical with brain processes, but that such states are contingently identical with physical

states of some sort or other, where the notion of a physical state is to be understood broadly to

include not only neurophysiological states but also other states that are grounded in

microphysical states, including functional states or states of the sort posited by

representationalism, for example.

For conscious states, the identities are contingent since we can easily imagine their

having not obtained. For example, we can easily imagine a zombie undergoing the physical

state with which the experience of fear is to be identified and yet not experiencing fear at all.

Similarly, we can easily imagine someone experiencing fear without undergoing the given

physical state.

In the case of conscious mental states, the relevant identity statements are ones in

which the identity sign is flanked by rigid designators as in the case of “Heat is molecular

motion” or “Lightning is so-and-so electrical discharge”, but the statements, according to the

contingentist, are only contingently true.

Are there other such statements not involving consciousness? The contingentist holds

that there are. Consider the so-called “secondary qualities”, colors, tastes, smells and sounds.

These qualities have often been taken to be subjective dispositions, dispositions to produce

such-and-such a subjective response in perceivers. But objectivists about the secondary

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qualities hold otherwise. The color red, for example, according to the objectivist, is not the

disposition certain objects have to look red; after all, what it is for an object to look red is just

for it to look the way red objects look, at least on one standard and natural view. Rather, the

color red is a quality out there in the world, independent of perceivers. Some hold that this

quality is primitive and simple; others who are physicalists maintain that it is a physical quality,

the usual proposal being that red is a way of changing the light. Objects that are red, on this

view, have a certain reflectance or range of reflectances, red itself being identified with that

reflectance or reflectance range.

Physicalism about the secondary qualities goes hand in hand with physicalism about

conscious mental states. Those who are physicalists about conscious states hold that there are

excellent reasons for accepting the relevant mental-physical identities, reasons having to do

with the emergence of phenomenal states such as pain in the natural world and their causal

efficacy. Correspondingly, those who are physicalists about the secondary qualities hold that if

brute laws linking physical qualities to secondary qualities are to be avoided as well as puzzles

about the causal efficacy of secondary qualities, then they too must be physical qualities. To

suppose otherwise to create, in the case of color, a new mind-body problem as the surface of

objects, and counterpart problems for the other secondary qualities.

Consider, then, the identity statement, “Red is surface reflectance R.” Is this statement

to be understood on the model of “Water is H2O” or “Pain is physical state P”? In all three

statements, the designators are rigid at least in the first sense distinguished earlier, let us

agree. But “Red is reflectance R” surely goes with “Pain is physical state P” rather than with

“Water is H20”; for while we cannot imagine a world in which water is not H20, given that in fact

17
water is H2O, we can surely imagine a world in which red objects lack reflectance R or a world in

which objects with reflectance R fail to be red. Suppose, for example, that you are viewing a

ripe tomato. You are conscious of its color. Surely you can imagine that very color, the one of

which you are directly aware, being possessed by objects with a very different reflectance.

Alternatively, surely you can imagine another object having reflectance R and yet not having

that color, the one you are confronted with as you view the ripe tomato.

On this view, even though the secondary qualities are external, physical qualities of

things, they do not have a hidden physical nature (or essence). By contrast, heat and water do.

To suppose that it follows from this that the secondary qualities have a nonphysical nature is to

engage in the same scope confusion remarked on earlier in connection with consciousness

With these distinctions and clarifications in hand, we are ready to turn to the hard

problem.

4. The Hard Problem Examined

Here is Chalmers on the hard problem:

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of

how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when

our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have

visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How

can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to

experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis,

but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical

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 processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it

should, and yet it does…If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is

this one. (1995, p. 201)

It is interesting to note that in these comments, Chalmers takes the quality of deep blue to be

an example of a visual experience. This is not quite right, of course, since deep blue is a color, a

quality that is experienced, not a quality or kind of experience. But the example reinforces a

point I made earlier, namely that the case of secondary qualities such as deep blue goes hand in

hand with the case of consciousness. If we are puzzled as to how visual experience arises from a

physical basis, we should be equally puzzled as to how deep blue arises from such a basis.

What exactly is puzzling here? Let us focus on the case of deep blue first. Physicalists

usually tell us that deep blue is a certain reflectance property. Let us call the relevant physical

property “Pb”. If deep blue is identical with Pb, then, of course, wherever Pb is instantiated,

deep blue is instantiated. And assuming that there is no puzzle as to how the physical property,

Pb, arises, there is no puzzle as to how deep blue arises. At this level, there is no explanatory

gap, no hard problem. But still we want to say: why should Pb be deep blue? Why couldn’t Pb

have been scarlet or bright yellow? Why couldn’t there be objects that token Pb, and thus

change the light in all the ways that deep blue actually does, and yet there be no objects that

have the visually striking quality we experience when we encounter objects that are deep blue?

These questions certainly seem intelligible to us, but we find ourselves stopped dead by them.

There seem to be a gap in our understanding here. We feel we should be able to provide

answers to these questions, to offer satisfying explanations, but we can’t – or so it is usually

supposed.

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 Compare this case with that of heat and molecular motion. Suppose someone asks: why

should molecular motion be heat? Why couldn’t molecular motion have been present without

heat? Here satisfying answers are at hand. We know that, in fact, molecular motion is heat,

since we know that heat is the phenomenon that plays a certain causal role (it causes water to

boil, solids to expand, humans to experience a certain characteristic sensation, for example);

and molecular motion has been discovered to be that very phenomenon. Once we know this,

we know also that we cannot imagine molecular motion being present without heat, that

scenarios in which we initially take this to be the case are really scenarios in which molecular

motion is present without the characteristic experience of heat in human beings (or other

creatures), due to defective nerve endings, for example.12

Knowing these things, we see right away that the question, “Why couldn’t molecular

motion have been present without heat?” has a simple and satisfying answer: molecular

motion makes up the very nature of heat. It is of the essence of heat that it be molecular

motion. This essence precludes the possibility of molecular motion being present without heat.

12 Ken Albert has suggested to me that we can’t really imagine Pb without deep blue (and vice-

versa). What we really imagine is Pb without the characteristic appearance of deep blue (and

vice versa). The case thus is like that of heat and molecular motion after all. The difficulty here

is that a surface, in appearing deep blue, is experienced as having the quality, deep blue. And

we surely can imagine that quality – the one that the surface is experienced as having here (the

quality the surface appears to have) – as being present without Pb. SImilarly, the other way

around.

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 Why, then, is there apparently a puzzle in the case of deep blue? The answer, I suggest,

is that deep blue, like other secondary qualities, has no physical nature or essence. It is only a

contingent fact that deep blue is one and the same as Pb. This being the case, we can easily

imagine Pb without deep blue, but instead with scarlet or bright yellow. So, Pb really could have

been scarlet or bright yellow. We think that the question, “Why couldn’t Pb have been scarlet or

bright yellow?” presents a real puzzle because we assume that if deep blue is physical, it must

have a physical nature and thus that if deep blue is in fact Pb, it necessarily is. But this is a

mistake. Deep blue is not like heat or water or gold. Further, we can imagine Pb without any

quality at all of the sort we encounter in the actual world in color experience. But again this

does not present us with a puzzle: it is a reflection of the fact that Pb is only contingently

identical with deep blue.

Suppose it is now said that we still don’t understand why in the actual world there is any

such quality as deep blue instantiated in objects having Pb instead of some other color. Why is it

that in actual fact when we view an object having Pb, the quality we experience is deep blue

instead of green or purple? Why in actual fact is there any color quality experienced in this

case?

If this is the question, the answer is straightforward. In actual fact when we view an

object having Pb, we encounter deep blue in our experience because deep blue just is Pb.

Moreover, we encounter a color quality in this case because the object viewed, ex hypothesi,

has Pb and Pb is identical with a color. Admittedly, we can easily imagine Pb without deep blue

and indeed without any quality of the sort presented to us by color experience, as I have noted

21
above, and thus Pb and deep blue do indeed seem to us very different. But this does not

undermine their identity, if, as I am proposing, that identity is contingent.

I turn now to the case of consciousness. In the passage quoted earlier from Chalmers,

the puzzle with respect to consciousness has two dimensions: specific and general. The specific

dimension concerns specific types of consciousness: why, for example, should we have the

sensation of middle C when our cognitive systems engage in auditory information-processing?

Why couldn’t the information processing and underlying physical goings on take place without

the subjective experience of middle C? The general dimension concerns consciousness of any

sort whatsoever: why should physical processing give rise to any subjective experience at all?

Both forms of the problem are also to be found in Levine’s well-known essay on the

explanatory gap (1983, reprinted in 2002). Here, for example, is Levine on the specific case:

Let’s call the physical story for seeing red “R” and the physical story for seeing green

“G”. My claim is this. When we consider the qualitative character of our visual

experiences when looking at ripe McIntosh apples, as opposed to looking at ripe

cucumbers, the difference is not explained by appeal to G and R. For R doesn’t really

explain why I have the one kind of qualitative experience – the kind I have when looking

at McIntosh apples – and not the other. As evidence for this, note that it seems just as

easy to imagine G as it is to imagine R underlying the qualitative experience that is in

fact associated with R. The reverse, of course, also seems quite imaginable. (2002, pp.

356-357.

On the general case, Levine has this to say:

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 No matter how rich the information processing or the neurophysiological story gets, it

still seems quite coherent to imagine that all that should be going on without there

being anything it is like to undergo the states in question. Yet if the physical or

functional story really explained the qualitative character, it would not be so clearly

imaginable that the qualia should be missing. For we would say to ourselves something

like the following:

Suppose creature X satisfies functional (or physical) description F. I understand –

from my functional or physical theory of consciousness – what it is about

instantiating F that is responsible for its being a conscious experience. So, how

could X occupy a state with those very features and yet not be having F? (2002, p.

359)

Let me begin my response with the specific case. Consider two elements: carbon and

gold. How are we to explain their difference? The answer is given to us by physical science:

carbon is the element with atomic number 6, gold is the element with atomic number 79. Once

we know this and we understand what an atomic number is, we cannot intelligibly say to

ourselves: why shouldn’t objects made from the element with atomic number 6 thereby be

made of gold? But why not? The answer is clear: because we take it to be metaphysically

necessary that carbon is the element with atomic number 6, and thus that any object with that

atomic number must be made of carbon. And we take this to be the case because, once we

appreciate that carbon is the element with atomic number 6, we cannot imagine that there is

an object with that atomic number that isn’t carbon. Here patently there is no explanatory gap,

no hard problem.

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 If we think of the case of visual experiences with the qualitative character of our visual

experiencing looking at ripe McIntosh apples on this model, we will immediately find ourselves

perplexed; for now, if we hold that this qualitative character – call it ‘Q’ -- is just physical

property R, then we will also hold that it is metaphysically necessary that Q is R and thus that

once we are in a state that tokens R, we must thereby be in a state having Q. This seems clearly

wrong: we can easily imagine states with R having a different qualitative character (the one

associated with seeing ripe cucumbers, for example). So, how are we to explain the fact that it

is states with physical property R rather than states with physical property G that have

qualitative character Q? There seems no good answer.

The solution, I suggest, lies with the realization that it is a mistake to model the

consciousness case on that of carbon/gold. Qualitative character Q is identical with physical

property R, if physicalism is true. But this is a contingent identity (even though the designators

‘Q’ and ‘R’ are rigid). So, we can imagine Q without R (and R without Q), but the fact that we

can do so is not an indicator of an explanatory gap. A creature could indeed have been in a

state having Q without being in a state having R and vice-versa.

This leaves us, I suggest, with only one question: why is it that in the actual world, Q is

identical with R? After all, in some other possible worlds, I am claiming, Q is not identical with R

and so in those worlds Q can be tokened without R and R without Q. So, what is it about the

actual world which is responsible for the identity obtaining?

This is not the same as the question: what is it about the actual world that is responsible

for Q’s being self-identical? That is a question about the possession of the property of being

self-identical; and the answer here is simply that everything is necessarily self-identical

24
(formally, ∀x□(x=x)). The question rather is about Q’s possession of the property of being

identical with R, which is a property only Q has. This question, however, also has a

straightforward answer. In the actual world, Q is the property of visual experiences that plays a

characteristic causal role (in normally eliciting the belief that a red object is present and

normally being caused by something red). In the actual world, the latter property is best seen as

a physical property, namely R, according to the physicalist, if over-determination and brute

emergence are to be avoided. That is why in the actual world Q is identical with R.

Might things have been different? Indeed, they might. The physical processing might

have gone on just as it does, the information processing might have been just the same, the

cognitive machinery might have functioned as it does, and yet along with all of this, Q might not

have been present in experience. That is certainly intelligible to us. But it creates no

explanatory puzzle; for that is only a metaphysically possible world. It is not the actual world. As

far as the actual world goes, there is nothing puzzling or problematic, nothing left to explain.

We understand why it is that a state, in having R, has Q (Q is identical with R) and we

understand why it is that Q is identical with R (as noted above). No mystery remains.

Turning finally to the general dimension of the hard problem, our question is this: why

should physical processing give rise to any subjective experience at all? Let us suppose that it is

physical property, W, that is responsible for a state’s being a conscious experience. How, then,

we ask, could a creature C occupy a state with W and yet not be having a subjective

experience?

The answer is simple. A creature could occupy a state with W and yet not be having a

conscious experience, since this is something we can easily imagine. But this does not reflect a

25
gap in our understanding. In the actual world, the property of being a conscious experience,

consciousness itself, is identical with W. The identity is only contingent, however. Physical

processing gives rise to a “rich inner life”, as Chalmers puts it, because in the actual world

consciousness is physical. It might not have been. Scenarios in which the relevant physical

processing is present and consciousness is missing are easily imaginable (and thus

metaphysically possible), but this is irrelevant if it is only a contingent fact that consciousness is

a physical phenomenon.

We are left with one question. Heat, water, gold and carbon are all physical phenomena

and they all have physical essences. Consciousness, I am claiming, is also a physical

phenomenon, but it lacks a physical essence. Furthermore, consciousness is not even

essentially physical. What is responsible for this difference? Why should heat, for example, be a

certain physical phenomenon, molecular motion, not just in the actual world but in all possible

worlds, and consciousness be physical in the actual world while being nonphysical in some

other possible worlds?

By now, the answer, I hope, is clear. Some physical phenomena – the color red, the

taste sweet, the sound of middle C, the visual experience of red, the feeling of pain,

consciousness itself whatever its stripe – are only contingently physical. Take, for example, the

case of the feeling of pain. Pain is a physical phenomenon but it doesn’t have a hidden nature

or essence as water does discoverable by empirical investigation. Since ‘pain’ is a rigid

designator, it picks out the same kind of state in all possible worlds. That kind is essentially a

certain phenomenal kind; and that phenomenal kind, in the actual world, is physical. In some

other possible worlds, it is not. Is pain a natural kind then? That depends on how we use the

26
term ‘natural kind’. Pain is a kind found in nature; and that kind is, in fact, physical. But, to

repeat, it is not an essentially physical kind like water.

What goes for pain goes for consciousness simpliciter. Consciousness is the property (or

state) of having some phenomenal character or other (being an x such that there is something

it is like to undergo x). Consciousness is the most general phenomenal kind. And the term

‘consciousness’ denotes that phenomenal kind in every possible world. In the actual world, that

kind is physical, according to the physicalist, since it is only on the hypothesis of physicalism

with respect to the actual world that problems of emergence and causal efficacy can be

handled satisfactorily, or so the physicalist believes. But in some metaphysically possible

worlds, consciousness just emerges without explanation; in still other such worlds,

consciousness is found in angels and disembodied spirits generally; and in still other worlds,

consciousness has no causal power. These counterfactual scenarios are irrelevant to our

understanding of consciousness in the actual world, however. Once these points are fully

appreciated, it should also be appreciated that the hard problem of consciousness is not really a

special, hard problem at all.13

13 I would like to thank Derek Ball, Ned Block, Keith Hossack, Frank Jackson, Jon Litland, Adam

Pautz, and Dan Stoljar for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. In addition, I owe

a very large debt to Mark Sainsbury. He essentially co-wrote the first third of section 1 with me

and his contribution to section 2 is also very significant.

27
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