ABSTRACT
The problems of providing physicalist explanations of the nature and generation of consciousness are so perplexing as to invite radical speculation. David Chalmers views provide a springboard into such speculative currents. Chalmers espouses a kind of dualism, in which consciousness figures as a fundamental feature of the world, essentially linked to information and functional architecture. Chalmers' approach to consciousness is distinguished in the way it places the 'hard problem' at the very centre of the issue. The seriousness of the generation problem may require a radical solution. The view that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the world is attractive. The most coherent view, as well as that most likely to come to grips with the generation problem is panpsychism. And there are features of the world, hinted at in quantum physics that have a strange affinity with consciousness as well as panpsychism.
