Ian,
From what I have read of Chalmers what he calls 'hard' might be better described as 'demonstrably hard', and what he describes as 'easy' might be better described as 'not so far demonstrably hard'. There is a huge difference between saying something is not provably hard, and saying that it is in fact easy.
My view is that physicalism can't explain the hard problems (qualia), but it can't explain the easy problems either - possibly because we think using qualia all the time. Quite abstract concepts - such as particular sorts of equations, or programming languages - have qualia associated with them - at least in my mind. I suspect the idea of a brain running without qualia - your android - is actually an absurdity.
David |