<story><title>Toward a Mature Science of Consciousness</title><url>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5986937/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>incadenza</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve always felt that Dennett has side stepped the question here. The &amp;#x27;hard problem&amp;#x27; here is to explain how a set of physical processes give rise to consciousness or sensory experience at all. In other words, why the lights are on.&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, consciousness is literally the one thing in the universe that can&amp;#x27;t be an illusion. Even if, in the extreme case, we&amp;#x27;re brains in a vat, etc.</text></item><item><author>lisper</author><text>I found that Dan Dennett&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Consciousness Explained&amp;quot; really resonated with me.  His thesis is (as best I can condense a whole book to fit in an HN comment) that consciousness is essentially an illusion produced by the brain as the best model it can construct of the sensory input it receives.  But the model actually lags behind the present, and its history can be rewritten when new information comes in.  Dennett describes it much better than I do, and provides a lot of experimental evidence.  If nothing else, the experiments he describes will make you see your own consciousness in a new light.  I recommend reading the book.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jbattle</author><text>&amp;gt; As far as I can tell, consciousness is literally the one thing in the universe that can&amp;#x27;t be an illusion. Even if, in the extreme case, we&amp;#x27;re brains in a vat, etc.&lt;p&gt;Cogito ergo sum!&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Toward a Mature Science of Consciousness</title><url>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5986937/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>incadenza</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve always felt that Dennett has side stepped the question here. The &amp;#x27;hard problem&amp;#x27; here is to explain how a set of physical processes give rise to consciousness or sensory experience at all. In other words, why the lights are on.&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, consciousness is literally the one thing in the universe that can&amp;#x27;t be an illusion. Even if, in the extreme case, we&amp;#x27;re brains in a vat, etc.</text></item><item><author>lisper</author><text>I found that Dan Dennett&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Consciousness Explained&amp;quot; really resonated with me.  His thesis is (as best I can condense a whole book to fit in an HN comment) that consciousness is essentially an illusion produced by the brain as the best model it can construct of the sensory input it receives.  But the model actually lags behind the present, and its history can be rewritten when new information comes in.  Dennett describes it much better than I do, and provides a lot of experimental evidence.  If nothing else, the experiments he describes will make you see your own consciousness in a new light.  I recommend reading the book.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lisper</author><text>Like I said, trying to condense it down to an HN comment imposes some very severe restrictions.  The word &amp;quot;illusion&amp;quot; is not really quite right.  A better description might be (and these are my words, not Dennett&amp;#x27;s) that consciousness is in its own ontological category [1].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.rongarret.info&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;31-flavors-of-ontology.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.rongarret.info&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;31-flavors-of-ontology.ht...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>