Editing Hard problem of consciousness (section)

=== Commentary on the problem's explanatory targets ===
Philosopher Raamy Majeed argued in 2016 that the hard problem is associated with two "explanatory targets":<ref name="majeed2016">{{cite journal|last=Majeed|first=Raamy|date=September 2016|title=The hard problem & its explanatory targets|journal=[[Ratio (journal)|Ratio]]|volume=29|issue=3|pages=298–311|doi=10.1111/rati.12103}}</ref>
#[PQ] Physical processing gives rise to experiences with a phenomenal character.
#[Q] Our phenomenal qualities are thus-and-so.

The first fact concerns the relationship between the physical and the phenomenal (i.e., how and why are some physical states [[Feeling|felt]] states), whereas the second concerns the very nature of the phenomenal itself (i.e., what does the felt state [[What Is it Like to Be a Bat?|feel like]]?).

Wolfgang Fasching argues that the hard problem is not about qualia, but about the what-it-is-like-ness of experience in Nagel's sense—about the givenness of phenomenal contents:

<blockquote>Today there is a strong tendency to simply ''equate'' consciousness with the qualia. Yet there is clearly something not quite right about this. The "itchiness of itches" and the "hurtfulness of pain" are qualities we are conscious ''of''. So philosophy of mind tends to treat consciousness as if it consisted simply of the contents of consciousness (the phenomenal qualities), while it really is precisely ''consciousness'' of contents, the very givenness of whatever is subjectively given. And therefore the problem of consciousness does not pertain so much to some alleged "mysterious, nonpublic objects", i.e. objects that seem to be only "visible" to the respective subject, but rather to the nature of "seeing" itself (and in today’s philosophy of mind astonishingly little is said about the latter).<ref>Fasching, W. Prakāśa. "A few reflections on the Advaitic understanding of consciousness as presence and its relevance for philosophy of mind." ''Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences'' (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-020-09690-2</ref></blockquote>