To some, reasoning is the easy problem of consciousness (inasmuch as, in their opinion, we can easily use machines to perform deductions), and perception the hard problem (inasmuch as that is not easy for a machine to do the work of perception).
But in our experience, reasoning is concomitant with desire, imagination, and perception. In fact, it is interwoven with these. Could the process of reasoning proceed in a human that had no desire? no perception? no imagination? Could any being without these characteristics reason as we reason? Could it reason at all?
Could these questions be turned back at one like myself, since I believe in immortality? That is, if I am willing to argue that they are inseparable, then am I not arguing against immortality? This objection would probably not apply to a Thomist, who thought consciousness post-mortem and pre-Resurrection was not a natural occurrence: reason is not naturally able to operate (unless what is lacking be supplied or supplemented).
Comments