The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake

by Steven Novella

The other side of this argument is perhaps best articulated by Daniel Dennett. He says, essentially, that there is no hard problem. It’s easy problems all the way down. Once you have solved all the easy problems, then you’ve solved the hard problem by extension. To explain further, he encourages you to simply ask, “And then what happens?” The brain sees an image; that information goes to the association cortex, which gives it meaning as a thing; and then that information goes to the amygdala for the assignment of emotion to the thing you are seeing (if it is living). And then what? Well, then that information goes to some other part of the brain where memories are stored. And then what? Well, that provokes a pattern recognition in your memory of a previous event involving the object. And then what? Then that information goes again to the emotional centers to provoke the emotions you have associated with that memory. And the chain keeps going. It never stops. All these components of brain function that we’ve identified just keep going around in circles. The brain talks to itself, it receives new information, it activates circuits and networks, which provokes other networks, on and on until you die. That endless chain of activity (which pauses when you sleep but is actually replaced by other types of brain activity that just don’t produce wakefulness) is your stream of consciousness. It doesn’t ever have to go anywhere or report to anything. It’s simply consciousness. Theref...