Perhaps a hundred or a thousand years from now the physicalist program will look naïve. I doubt it. But in acknowledging this possibility, it is also important to counter the presumption that by delineating a physical basis for consciousness we devalue it. That the mind can do all it does is extraordinary. That the mind may accomplish all it does with nothing more than the kinds of ingredients and types of forces holding together my coffee cup makes it more extraordinary still. Consciousness would be demystified without being diminished.
