David Chalmers’ Theory of Consciousness: Critique and Significance

Abstract

David Chalmers’ theory of consciousness offers a non-reductive approach that challenges the attempt to explain phenomenal experience entirely in terms of physical and cognitive processes. By distinguishing physical facts from phenomenal facts, Chalmers argues that consciousness should be regarded as a fundamental feature of reality, systematically connected to physical processes through psychophysical principles. His Principle of Structural Coherence explains the relationship between consciousness and awareness, while the Principle of Organizational Invariance emphasizes functional organization as central to conscious experience. His Double-Aspect Theory of Information further proposes that information has both physical and phenomenal aspects, forming the basis of his naturalistic dualism. However, the theory faces significant challenges concerning causal closure, supervenience, psychophysical laws, functionalism, and the explanatory gap. The central unresolved issue is how distinct physical and phenomenal properties can be so precisely related without reducing one to the other.