The Emperor's New Mind

Why Are We Conscious at All? | The Hard Problem for Sleep

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

Something is happening right now that no science can fully explain. There is an experience accompanying every moment of awareness, a felt quality to seeing color, hearing sound, and simply existing. This is the problem of consciousness, and it has haunted philosophy for centuries. This episode traces the question from its roots in Descartes and Leibniz through the landmark arguments of Thomas Nagel and David Chalmers, who gave the mystery its modern name: the hard problem of consciousness. Along the way, we examine the major positions: materialists like Daniel Dennett argue the problem will dissolve once we understand the brain well enough, panpsychists like Philip Goff propose that consciousness is woven into the fabric of reality itself, neuroscientists like Giulio Tononi attempt to measure it mathematically, and the question of whether artificial intelligence could ever be conscious forces us to confront just how little we understand about what consciousness is and where it begins. The full episode is on YouTube and Spotify. Please listen only in safe, restful contexts.