Science Salon

In this fascinating discussion of one of the hardest problems in all of science — the hard problem of consciousness, that is, explaining how the feeling or experience of something can arise from neural activity — one of the world’s leading neuroscientists Christof Koch argues that consciousness, more widespread than previously assumed, is the feeling of being alive, not a type of computation or a clever hack. Consciousness is experience. Consciousness is, as his book title states, The Feeling of Life Itself — the feeling of being alive. Shermer and Koch discuss: the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) where consciousness is located in the brain (or, more precisely, where it is not located) what comas and vegetative states teach us about consciousness what brain injuries and diseases teach us about consciousness what hallucinogens teach us about consciousness what split-brain surgeries teach us about the nature of the self and identity Koch’s experience with psilocybin and what he learned about conscious