Dissolving Qualia via Occam's Razor

Abstract

This paper argues that the 'hard problem of consciousness' is a grammatical artifact rather than a genuine metaphysical puzzle. The difficulty arises from nominalization error: treating the verb 'to be conscious' as if it named a thing requiring explanation. When we ask 'What is consciousness?' we presuppose an entity; when we ask 'What is happening when an organism is being conscious?' we ask about observable processes—a tractable empirical question. Drawing on Wittgenstein's language games and Ryle's category-error analysis, we show that phenomenological vocabulary systematically converts activities into pseudo-objects, generating explanatory demands that cannot be satisfied because the explanandum is malformed. The hard problem dissolves not because consciousness is 'merely' functional, but because the question was grammatically malformed from the start.

Methodology

Suggested Citation

BibTeX

@misc{farzulla2026_consciousness_nominalization,
  author       = {Farzulla, Murad},
  title        = {Dissolving Qualia via Occam's Razor},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {ASCRI Discussion Paper DP-2602},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.18195915},
  url          = {https://systems.ac/5/DP-2602}
}

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