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Café Scientific, Bristol, April 2004
What is consciousness? At once the most obvious,
and the most difficult thing we can investigate, consciousness remains
undefined. It is a real mystery for science and the more we learn
about how the brain works, the less we seem able to answer the really
difficult question – why should the activity of millions of brain
cells ever produce subjective experience? How can a physical lump of
flesh be responsible for my sense of being alive here now? I shall
describe some of the recent evidence on consciousness, self and
voluntary action, as well as discussing ways in which we can
investigate our own experience directly. Happily both just make the
problem seem worse. So I am hoping you will end the evening with a
pain in your head and a growing doubt as to whether you really are
conscious now.
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