At first glance, human consciousness seems like the one thing we should never have to doubt. We know we are conscious because we experience the world in vivid detail: the small luxury of a piece of chocolate; a song imbued with sadness; or a childhood memory that takes us back to another place and time.
But for such a fundamental aspect of reality, what underlies consciousness — the experience of being aware of one’s own existence — has proved deceptively hard to pin down. Researchers and philosophers have spent centuries debating how and why physical processes in the brain result in the subjective, first-person experiences we all seem to have. This issue, known as the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, continues to drive research today
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