Transcript

It is the most fundamental experience of all, defining our waking moments and giving rise to all that we think and feel. Without consciousness, we have no way of proving we or anything else exists. And yet, what it is and why we have it remain a mystery that some of the greatest minds have been unable to solve.

The only way I know I exist is because I'm conscious. I wake up in the dark of a hotel room. I'm discombobulated because I'm jet lagged. I have no idea where I am or even who I am and what country I am. Yet I know I exist because I see something rapid. Advances in our understanding of how the brain works might one day allow us to pinpoint the parts of the brain that generate consciousness, but will something as objective as science be able to explain what it feels like to be us?