"THE HARD PROBLEM, DAVID CHALMERS CALLS IT: Why are the physical processes of the brain “accompanied by an experienced inner life?” How and why is there something it is like to be you and me, in Thomas Nagel’s formulation? I’ve been reading around in the field of consciousness studies for over two decades—Chalmers, Nagel, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Jerry Fodor, Ned Block, Frank Jackson, Paul and Patricia Churchland, Alva Noë, Susan Blackmore—and the main thing I’ve learned is that no one has the slightest idea. Not that the field lacks for confident pronouncements to the contrary."
"My own intuition, for what little it’s worth, is that consciousness really is something extra—not (or not only) physical, not reducible to physical properties. I’m with Chalmers thus far, though I happily follow Nagel even further: “Conscious subjects and their mental lives are inescapable components of reality not describable by the physical sciences.” I learn much that is fascinating about the brain from books like Graziano’s, but nothing about how its processes or electrochemical interactions, no matter their baroque intricacy, could produce this."