https://quarksoul.com/essays/ Essays on philosophy of mind and physics: the hard problem of consciousness, the quantum observer, panpsychism, and whether AI could be conscious. en Sun, 12 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200 https://quarksoul.com/essays/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness/ https://quarksoul.com/essays/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness/ Sun, 12 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200 David Chalmers split the study of mind into easy problems and one hard one. A close reading of why every attempted solution to the hard problem quietly changes the question instead of answering it. https://quarksoul.com/essays/quantum-observer-and-consciousness/ https://quarksoul.com/essays/quantum-observer-and-consciousness/ Sun, 12 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200 Quantum mechanics really does have an "observer" in its measurement problem. It is not the conscious mind of popular quantum-mysticism claims. Where the physics stops and the speculation takes over. https://quarksoul.com/essays/panpsychism-as-hypothesis/ https://quarksoul.com/essays/panpsychism-as-hypothesis/ Sun, 12 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200 Panpsychism proposes that experience is a basic feature of matter. What it solves, what the combination problem costs it, and why serious philosophers keep returning to it. https://quarksoul.com/essays/can-ai-be-conscious/ https://quarksoul.com/essays/can-ai-be-conscious/ Sun, 12 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200 Whether a large language model could ever be conscious depends less on how capable it gets and more on which decades-old theory of mind you find persuasive.