Editing Explanatory gap (section)

== Implications ==
The nature of the explanatory gap is disputed. Some consider it to be simply a limit on our current explanatory ability.<ref>Dennett, D. C. 1991. ''Consciousness Explained''. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.</ref> They argue that future neuroscience findings or philosophers' work could close the gap. Others argue that the gap is a definite limit on our cognitive abilities as humans—no amount of further information will allow us to close it.<ref>McGinn, C. 1989. “Can we solve the mind-body problem?” ''Mind'', 98: 349–66</ref> There is no consensus about what metaphysical conclusions the existence of the gap provides. Those who use its existence to support dualism have often assumed that an epistemic gap—particularly if it is a definite limit on our cognitive abilities—necessarily entails a metaphysical gap.<ref>Chalmers, D. 1996. ''The Conscious Mind''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>

Joseph Levine and others{{clarify|reason=Who?|date=April 2023}} opt to either remain silent on the matter or argue that no such metaphysical conclusion should be drawn.<ref name=Levine1983>Levine, J. 1983. "Materialism and qualia: the explanatory gap", ''Pacific Philosophical Quarterly'', 64: 354–361.</ref> He agrees that conceivability (as used in the [[philosophical zombie|Zombie]] and [[inverted spectrum]] arguments) the theory is flawed as a means of establishing metaphysical realities; but argues that even if we come to the ''metaphysical'' conclusion that qualia are physical, they still present an ''explanatory'' problem.
<blockquote>While I think this materialist response is right in the end, it does not suffice to put the mind-body problem to rest. Even if conceivability considerations do not establish that the mind is in fact distinct from the body, or that mental properties are metaphysically irreducible to physical properties, still they do demonstrate that we lack an explanation of the mental in terms of the physical.<ref name="tuson-iii">J. Levine, "Conceivability, Identity, and the Explanatory Gap" in Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak and David Chalmers (eds.), ''Towards a Science of Consciousness III: The Third Tucson Discussions and Debates'', The MIT Press, 1999, pp 3–12.</ref></blockquote>

However, such an [[epistemological]] or explanatory problem might indicate an underlying metaphysical issue—the non-physicality of qualia, even if not proven by conceivability arguments, is far from ruled out.
<blockquote>In the end, we are right back where we started. The explanatory gap argument doesn't demonstrate a gap in nature, but a gap in our understanding of nature. Of course, a plausible explanation for there being a gap in our understanding of nature is that there is a genuine gap in nature. But so long as we have countervailing reasons for doubting the latter, we have to look elsewhere for an explanation of the former.<ref name="tuson-iii"/></blockquote>

According to Levine, the core of the problem is our lack of understanding of what it means for a qualitative experience to be fully comprehended. He emphasizes that we do not even know to what extent it is appropriate to inquire into the nature of this kind of experience. He uses the laws of gravity as an example, which laws seem to explain gravity completely, yet do not account for the gravitational constant. Similar to how gravity appears to be an inexplicable brute fact of nature, the case of qualia may be one in which we either lack essential information or explore a natural phenomenon that is not further apprehensible. Levine suggests that, for this reason, perhaps we should consider whether it is necessary to find a more complete explanation of qualitative experience.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levin |first1=Janet |title=Is Conceptual Analysis Needed for the Reduction of Qualitative States? |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |date=2002 |volume=64 |issue=3 |pages=571–591 |doi=10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00161.x |jstor=3070969 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3070969 |access-date=15 March 2022 |issn=0031-8205|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Levine points out that understanding how much there is to be known about qualitative experience seems even more difficult because we lack a way to articulate what it means for actualities to be knowable in the manner he has in mind. He concludes that there are good reasons to want a more complete explanation of qualitative experiences. One is that consciousness appears to manifest only where mentality is demonstrated in physical systems that are quite highly organized. {{clarify|text=This, of course, may indicate a human capacity for reasoning that is no more than the result of organized functions.|date=April 2023}} Levine argues that it seems counterintuitive to accept this implication that the human brain, so highly organized as it is, could be no more than a routine executor.{{non sequitur|date=April 2023}} He notes that while materialism appears to entail the reducibility of anything that is not physically primary to an explanation of its dependence on a mechanism that can be described in terms of physical fundamentals, that kind of reductionism does not attempt to reduce psychology to physical science. However, it still entails that inexplicable classes of facts are not treated as relevant to statements pertinent to psychology.{{how|date=April 2023}}{{Citation needed|date=September 2020}}

[[Christian List]] believes that the existence of first-personal facts provides a refutation of not only physicalist theories of consciousness, but also most standard versions of dualism.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/LISAQF |title=A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness |last=List |first=Christian |date=2023 |website= |publisher=The Philosophical Quarterly |access-date=3 September 2024 |quote=}}</ref>

Many philosophers have doubted that the explanatory gap can be solved. As proponents of the argument use it to support arguments against materialism, physicalism, and naturalism, its arguments appear to resist any scientific or philosophical solution to the problem. David Chalmers acknowledged that even when science somehow bridges the gap, the problem will persist.<ref name=":0" />