Explanatory gap

The explanatory gap is the philosophical challenge of understanding how subjective, conscious experiences (qualia) arise from physical processes in the brain, despite scientific understanding of the brain’s workings. Coined by Joseph Levine, it highlights the difficulty of bridging the gap between third-person, objective scientific data about brain activity and the first-person, subjective experience of what it’s like to feel something. For example, describing the neural processes of seeing red does not inherently explain the feeling of redness itself.

Key aspects of the explanatory gap:

Subjectivity vs. Objectivity: The gap exists because science describes the physical world objectively (third-person), while consciousness is inherently subjective (first-person).
Qualia: The term “qualia” refers to the qualitative, phenomenal aspects of conscious experience, such as the taste of coffee, the feeling of pain, or the perception of color.
Physicalism: The concept poses a challenge for physicalism, the view that everything that exists is physical. It questions whether physical facts alone can fully account for mental phenomena.
Deductive Explanation: A crucial assumption is that a successful explanation of consciousness would involve deducing conscious experience from physical facts. However, no clear deductive route from brain states to conscious states has been found.

Example of the explanatory gap:

Seeing Red: A scientific explanation can describe the light waves and the firing of specific neurons when you see red. However, it doesn’t explain the subjective experience of what it’s like to see red, the phenomenal redness itself.

Relationship to the “Hard Problem” of Consciousness:

The explanatory gap is closely related to the “hard problem” of consciousness, which is the difficulty of explaining how consciousness arises from physical processes. Some philosophers believe the explanatory gap is a metaphysical reality, while others see it as an epistemological limitation that might be overcome with more advanced scientific understanding.

AI responses may include mistakes.

[1] https://fiveable.me/key-terms/introduction-cognitive-science/explanatory-gap

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/explanatory-gap

[3] https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/anthos/vol8/iss1/8/

[4] https://www.elanortaylor.org/uploads/9/1/8/2/91822306/gap_penultimate.pdf

[5] wikipedia/en/Explanatory_gap