The places of the mind in relation to the body is a problem that has
garnered philosophical interest across traditions. In contemporary philosophy, this
problem has taken the form of the following question, which the philosopher David
Chalmers called the ‘hard’ problem of consciousness: Why at all are certain physical
states/processes accompanied by conscious experiences? Currently, there is no
consensus on a solution to this problem. In recent years, Chalmers has raised a
different but related question, which he calls the meta-problem of consciousness:
Why, in the first place, do we think that the problem of consciousness is ‘hard’? It is
hoped that in responding to the meta-problem, we can make progress in finding a
solution to the hard problem. In this talk, I shall outline Chalmers’ meta-problems of
consciousness, and discuss the possible responses to this problem from the
perspective of various stakeholders in the debate.