text: The philosopher Thomas Metzinger likens the hard problem of consciousness to vitalism, a formerly 
  widespread view in biology which was not so much solved as abandoned.[66] Brian Jonathan Garrett has 
  also argued that the hard problem suffers from flaws analogous to those of vitalism.[67] 
  
  The philosopher Peter Hacker argues that the hard problem is misguided in that it asks how consciousness 
  can emerge from matter, whereas in fact sentience emerges from the evolution of living organisms.[68] He 
  states: "The hard problem isn’t a hard problem at all. The really hard problems are the problems the 
  scientists are dealing with. [...] The philosophical problem, like all philosophical problems, is a confusion 
  in the conceptual scheme."[68] Hacker's critique extends beyond Chalmers and the hard problem, being 
  directed against contemporary philosophy of mind and neuroscience more broadly. Along with the 
  neuroscientist Max Bennett, he has argued that most of contemporary neuroscience remains implicitly 
  dualistic in its conceptualizations and is predicated on the*mereological fallacy*of ascribing psychological 
  concepts to the brain that can properly be ascribed only to the person as a whole.[69] Hacker further states 
  that "consciousness studies", as it exists today, is "literally a total waste of time" and that "the conception 
  of consciousness which they have is incoherent".[68] 