I’ve been having wonderful email exchanges with a genuine Philosophy Professor, first a nearly two month run, with 27 messages from him. Most one liners, all sent during a specific time of the morning - he was a teaching professor, who unlike the philosophy professors up at our “Fort”, took an interest and made the time to tutor me and my wayward mind. I found it a fascinating exchange and I’m still putting that together to be tagged on as an Addendum to my, Hard Problem and Living Moment of Now, but it’s tedious and I am really crowded with other chores.
Still kept plugging away and when I sent the prof. (what is closing in on) a final draft of the project, to give a heads up and a chance for response. He responded with a wonderfully forthright email. First editorial observations and then a couple minor corrections.
Then he responded with a forthright engagement with what I’d written. The sort of stuff I been hoping for, for years.
A digression, found this a couple days ago, still excited about it.
*An especially fascinating rock I found a couple days ago next to a trail I’ve been walking up and down for 14 years, plus past couple weeks of determined rock hounding along the same slope.
This morning it’s simply laying right next to the trail. Cosmic giggle moment for sure. Too many chips, too nice a pattern, and it fits right into my hand ready to cut, though it looks like a key piece of the blade broke off, (nearest to viewer in 2nd pic.
When college starts up, I’m taking it to an expert for an opinion.*
===============================
Professor writes - May 22, 2026:
Good evening.
{opening personal paragraphs deleted}
[Professor writes] … You know, I don’t know if I even fully understand that lingo: “hard problem of consciousness.” I don’t believe I’ve ever used the phrase myself.
Cc: I don’t know what to make of that.
I’m discussing Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers’ X≠Y in all its creative constructs. Experience of the experience? Why can’t I feel like a Bat? Flesh v. Spirit conflict? And so on.
[Professor] I don’t know what you mean by talking about a construct either.
Cc: I mean an intellectual construction, as opposed to a conclusion based on a set of understood facts.
[Professor] All I do know is some basic things like what Descartes is talking about,
Cc: Okay, what did Descartes know, beyond how humans think?
No doubt Descartes was an outstanding mathematician, thinker and communicator, yet, what did this man, born in 1596, actually know about the human body out of which our thoughts flow?
[Professor] and I understand the issue well enough: Two things oughtn’t to be said to have fundamentally different properties and at the same time to have the relationship of one creating the other. That’s not how any reality I know of works.
Cc: Okay, me on the other hand, I am trying to understand “how does what D-N-C is talking about” actually relate to the biological reality of all living Earthly creature body/“brains” creating their own awareness?
I’m trying to understand the living reality of my body brain—and the mind it produces, the real physical thing. As opposed to sophisticated imaginings, words for words.
Regarding X≠Y and the real world, what about the reality of magnet, iron, and motion creating electricity that can be turned into a motive force?
Then there is the reality of radio transmitter that can send signals through the atmosphere to be picked up by a receiver placed across the world and translated into perceivable language and music?
Then there is the case of what Earth and biology oriented scientists are understanding with increasing thoroughness - creature awareness, thought, and appropriate goal oriented behaviors - the skills needed to survive a dynamic physical world, are a hallmark of Earthly living creatures all around.
[Professor] Meanwhile, your position seems to be “(Cc) We know from Evolution and the Krebs cycle that that is exactly how the reality of life works!"
Cc: That’s not it. You misunderstand.
My position is, without an understanding of the factual foundational Evolutionary-biological reality of who we are, all the philosophizing is akin to playing basketball in zero gravity. Dog chasing tails we tell ourselves.
Required Key Concept: Appreciating the Physical Reality ~ Human Mind divide!
Regarding the Krebs cycle that was the groundbreaking gambit.
Metaphorically like humans discovering (or should I say inventing the making of) coal & oil, with its cascading consequences.
Krebs cycle is literally the first step in taking a half dozen select elements (CHNOPS) and ultimately transforming them into biology, then life, then complex living creatures, a process that took billions of years, and countless achievements and stages, that are meaningful to understand, each in their own time.
[Professor] while you ignore or fail to understand the issue.
Cc: The issues being ontology, epistemology, and axiology matters, I take it?
You are correct, I don’t thoroughly understand those issues. I’m no academician.
I’m more of a tree-climber, nature lover, hands on person, skilled laboring type. Majoring in family, friends, experiencing and minoring in meditating upon this dance of life I’ve been blessed to experience.
After that, my life long hobby has been keeping up on Earth sciences, starting with the Plate Tectonics REvolution early ‘60s, the buzz around John Calhoun crowded rat studies, the space race, results of the Geophysical Year and that amazing first detailed map of the ocean bottoms, and the Leaky family unraveling the “story of man.”
My curiosity and fascination continues as more evidence accumulates. Scientific professionals have rarely disappointed with their steady stream of new understanding and quite often the rewriting of what we were taught and believed.
Though in every instance I can remember, in hindsight, the unexpected revelation, becomes an, oh gosh, why didn’t I see that myself, moment. Because nature is self-consistent. The evidence that reveals the answers is right in front of us, we just need to look at it from the proper perspective. That is, a touch of humility.
Professor, what are these issues beyond X≠Y?
[Professor] If macroEvolution really is that simple,
Cc: Please professor, I never used the term “macroEvolution”!
Nor do I know what you mean with the remark. Evolution’s outlines are straightforward enough, it’s the details that get devilishly difficult.
As you pointed out, you are doing metaphysics, the realm of ontology, epistemology, and axiology. The realm of the mind.
My mind is all about tackling the consciousness question via the building blocks of real world scientific evidence and Evolutionary understanding woven in with my experiences - producing a bottom-up, Earth-centric, science respecting outlook.
[Professor] then what we have here is the rudiments of a magnificent argument that macroEvolution is an inaccurate theory.
Cc: Why would that be?
I am not thinking about the nuances between “theories” of Evolution, nor Evolutionary algorithms.
I’m writing about repeatable observations of single celled creatures exhibiting the same basic self aware behaviors as complex creatures.
That is significant and worth discussing, but I’m told it’s uninteresting.
I’m wondering how our human introspective consciousness tracing back to the freak’n awareness exhibited by single-celled creatures, achieved at the dawn of time - can be dismissed as “uninteresting”?
[Professor] Alternatively, macroEvolution is not that simple and all you have is a begging the question fallacy: Evolution happened and is purely materialistic, and therefore there is no genuinely interesting question here for these philosophers to be asking about.
Cc: What?
You want a philosophically interesting question? How about that Drive to Thrive that appeared with the creation/invention of the Krebs cycle? And, has driven Evolution ever since.
Now, there’s a question ready to dance with those gods our philosophies create.
The intellectual horizons of taking in our own Evolutionary pageant are beyond imagining
But, you mean the philosophically interesting questions of Qualia, and why the experience of an experience feels like an experience? Or, why can’t I feel what it’s like to be within another’s skin? Is your red the same as my red? How can I be aware of myself? Is reality real? Those questions?
While I wonder how can people presume to seriously tackle such questions without giving the intricacies, workings, and origins of our own evolved biology creature body its due?
Why not discuss the most fundamental observation we can make about our human condition, namely, the human mind ~ physical reality divide?
With a world of further insights cascading from that one. Why can’t we discuss the facts of Evolution providing evidence that leads to an inevitable conclusion that our creature body is what creates our experience and thoughts, including our Gods and philosophies?
Is that too touchy, off limits? Too political?
[Professor] If you’ve got anything else, I still don’t know what it is.
Cc: No, that’s about it, Earth’s Evolution and the story of how she evolved all those different kinds of creatures, including us.
Material biological reality and the thread of Consciousness running through it.
The Consciousness best understood as a reflection of the inside of our creature body communicating with itself.
I have spelled out this Earth Centric perspective in Chalmers’ Hard Problem and the Living Moment of Now, and am willing to take any constructive critique or questions.
[Professor] And no–I am not “leaving out the living biological creature” that the question is about.
Cc: How’s that?
At least so far as the Descartes-Nagel-Chalmers’ hard problem is concerned.
[Professor] Either it’s got only those fundamental properties, or it doesn’t; if it does, no issue; if it doesn’t–the issue.
Cc: That does not help. Reminds me of three card monty.
What has What fundamental properties? What is the issue?
Psychologists and cognitive scientists believe that consciousness can be inferred, when certain fundamental self-interested behaviors can be observed. What’s wrong with that?
Scientists have been finding such behaviors, the hallmarks of consciousness wherever they’ve been able to look for it, down to primitive single celled creatures.
That is real and tells us something important.
I contend that Evolutionary-biological appreciation doesn’t deserve to be ghosted from the philosophical dialogue.
