In writing “The Rediscovery of Light,” written by Paul Churchland, the author emphasizes the issue of confusing epistemological and ontological limits. In addition, he describes the phenomenon of light and thoroughly critiques the other perspectives on this question related to other researchers. In the same manner that Chalmers is making an argument for an anti-reductionist interpretation of awareness, he claims that one may make an argument for an anti-reductionist interpretation of light. He contends that a difference might be formed for light and that Chalmers’ nonreductive differentiation for consciousness is thus erroneous. According to Churchland, the inherent property of luminance is what is accountable for light’s initial visibility. He contrasts this to all of light’s intrinsic or physical properties, including EM waves that can be reductively described, as opposed to luminance that can only be comprehended from a physical standpoint. Churchland states that all that is required to understand light is to describe its morphological, perceptual, and functional parts, but this is impossible to achieve since, according to Chalmers, luminance is irreducible and unchangeable.
In general, Churchland does not appear to realize that the irreducible component of light he is referring to is the subjective experience of brightness. He claims that illumination is irreducible since it possesses the quality of luminance, but light can be reductively defined. In contrast, the subjective experience of luminescence cannot, which is what Chalmer’s argument is all about. As a result, Churchland has entangled the phenomena of light with the conscious experience of brightness, stating that it is irreducible due to the individual experience of luminescence, which is what Chalmer’s easy/hard difference claims predominantly. Thus, light as a phenomenon can be separable in and of itself, but the subjective experience of brightness, or what it seems to be, is not.