beforeword · English transcription of the sent letter
Intended recipient: David Chalmers
Author: Kirill Shebetov · beforeword
Sent to: chalmers@nyu.edu
Sending date in the supplied materials: 2026-10-02 · 00:35
The sending timezone is not supplied.
Status: shown in the Sent folder; no reply published.
The published materials do not establish receipt or reading by the recipient.
Record: https://beforeword.xyz/letters/researchers/chalmers/en/#record
Record data: https://beforeword.xyz/letters/researchers/chalmers/record.json
Russian translation: https://beforeword.xyz/letters/researchers/chalmers/#letter
Transcribed from author-supplied screenshots. Screen line wraps are joined and overlaps included once; wording and punctuation are retained.
beforeword’s context and links to discussed publications are separate on the letter page.

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Subject: The meta-problem: from inscription to consciousness report

Dear David,

In §1.2 of “The Meta-Problem of Consciousness”, you describe “inscriptions (naturally interpretable as concerning consciousness)”.

beforeword proposes examining the step inside those parentheses.

A written sentence such as “I feel pain” may be read as a self-report, a quotation, or a scripted line. The wording alone does not select among these readings. Context and assumptions about its source enter into that selection.

The proposal is to include this selection in what needs explaining: how an inscription comes to be classified as a consciousness report, and what grounds support that classification. The inscription, the interpretation, and the stated grounds would remain separately available for examination.

The reading procedure and worked examples:
https://beforeword.xyz/model/en/

Please indicate whether this interpretive step belongs within your account of the meta-problem or calls for a separate account of how the reports to be explained are identified.

Kirill Shebetov
beforeword

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