the unsolvable riddle of consciousness
so we have this strong intuition that consciousness is causal, that it's doing something
Key Insights
Direct evidence of consciousness can only be obtained internally.
"There is no way to get true evidence of a conscious experience but from the inside."
Consciousness may be limited to what we can remember and report.
"We only know what enters the stream of memory and then what can be reported on."
Split-brain studies reveal multiple consciousnesses within a single individual.
"It's possible to even have a human-like mind that has no ability to communicate inside the same body of a mind that is able to communicate."
Consciousness is binary, not a spectrum.
"I think consciousness is consciousness. What if it's being experienced that's consciousness?"
The self is an illusion, akin to a dynamic process rather than a static entity.
"The experience of self is more analogous to an ocean wave... a dynamic process in nature."
Conscious experience might not confer evolutionary advantages.
"There's no reason to think that having an experience of that processing gives you an advantage at all."
AI's potential to surpass human thinking questions the value of consciousness.
"If AI can outthink us and it's not conscious... I do think consciousness is overrated."
Consciousness may not be causally effective in behavior.
"We have this strong intuition that consciousness is causal, that it's doing something... but... we don't actually have any evidence to believe that."
Sensory substitution can lead to new forms of perception.
"The brain converts to an intuitive way of experiencing."
Consciousness might not require high intelligence or complexity.
"I don't think we have any evidence to believe that high level of intelligence or complexity is required for consciousness."
Operator-provided highlight
"so we have this strong intuition that consciousness is causal, that it's doing something"
The Synthesis
The Unsolvable Riddle of Consciousness: Science's Ultimate Blind Spot
Every scientific breakthrough in human history has failed to crack the one puzzle that defines our existence: how lumps of non-conscious matter somehow generate the lived experience of being. In this riveting exchange between Chris Williamson and consciousness researcher Annaka Harris, we confront a mystery that neuroscience has spectacularly failed to solve despite two decades of sophisticated brain mapping and cognitive research.
Harris articulates the fundamental paradox with surgical precision: consciousness is categorically different from anything else science studies because it can only be known from the inside. The methodological tools that conquered physics, chemistry, and biology hit an epistemological wall when confronting subjective experience. While neuroscience can track neural correlates and behavioral outputs, it remains utterly silent on why there's "something it's like" to be a thinking being. As Harris notes, "We have not made any progress in the sciences in understanding how consciousness comes to be."
The conversation reaches its intellectual apex when Harris explores the unsettling possibility of "philosophical zombies"—beings behaviorally identical to humans but lacking internal experience—and the disturbing implication that consciousness might be an evolutionary accident rather than feature. "The thing that keeps me up at night," Harris confesses, "is what is that transition from no consciousness to consciousness, and how is that anything but a completely unexplained mystery?" This fundamental question exposes the limits not just of current science but perhaps of the scientific method itself.