"Why aren't we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life?"
— Burkeman, Oliver (b. 1975)
Author
Date
January 21, 2015
Metaphor
"Why aren't we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life?"
Metaphor in Context
The brain, Chalmers began by pointing out, poses all sorts of problems to keep scientists busy. How do we learn, store memories, or perceive things? How do you know to jerk your hand away from scalding water, or hear your name spoken across the room at a noisy party? But these were all "easy problems", in the scheme of things: given enough time and money, experts would figure them out. There was only one truly hard problem of consciousness, Chalmers said. It was a puzzle so bewildering that, in the months after his talk, people started dignifying it with capital letters -- the Hard Problem of Consciousness -- and it's this: why on earth should all those complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren't we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life? And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Oliver Burkeman, Consciousness: The Long Read (January 21, 2015). <Link to Guardian.com>
Date of Entry
02/10/2015
