- Solving the hard problem of consciousness
is right up there with explaining reality.
"Consciousness" is a pretty sloppy term,
it means many things.
Sometimes we mean 'self-identity,' having a self concept.
And there's other things called consciousness,
'access consciousness.'
You weren't thinking about your grandmother two seconds ago
but now you are, 'cause I used the word grandmother
that's come from somewhere in your brain,
there was a memory there,
it wasn't in your awareness at the moment, but now it is.
But, the most impressive use of the term
is what we refer to as 'phenomenal consciousness.'
And this relates to the so-called
"hard problem of consciousness."
The hard problem of consciousness refers
to this seemingly unsolvable problem
of how and why is anybody aware?
Why is there an experience there?
And, the only evidence that we have
for phenomenal consciousness,
the idea that there is some experience being had
is that, I feel that I'm having this experience,
I feel that I'm conscious.
And because other creatures walking around
that look like me, other human beings,
it's a presumption-probably a pretty good one-
that they're having a similar experience.
But there's really no evidence,
like, how would I prove that you are conscious?
That seems outside of the bounds of empirical science.
What experiment could you ever do to prove
that there is an experience to be like somebody else?
And that's what the hard problem is.
Most of the work that's been done with psychedelics
in terms of the brain mechanisms,
has not addressed any of these questions of consciousness.
But, a lot of people who take psychedelics
feel that they have profound realizations
about the nature of consciousness.
Now often, those realizations differ from each other.
People will say different things,
and sometimes the same person
with different psychedelic experiences
will have different conclusions.
But it seems pretty routine for people
to kind of grapple with those big questions, like,
'What is the nature of consciousness?'
And, that's why I think it's really important
that we separate, you know,
"Hey, a bunch of people say, based on their experiences,
that they believe psychedelics opens some window
into consciousness or give them sort of insights
into the nature of consciousness."
But that doesn't constitute scientific evidence
that what they're saying is actually true.
So it's kind of a weak argument;
it makes it intriguing to see if we can go further.
But like with any scientific question,
we shouldn't hold our breaths for the answers.
And a lot is made out of psychedelics
and their ability to inform the nature of consciousness.
And so, this would be the ultimate kind of task.
And I think when we automatically make that leap of,
"Well, psychedelics seem so fundamentally important
to consciousness that if we figure out how psychedelics
are working that's telling us something fundamental
about how consciousness is working."
We're on a slippery slope there,
we can start to fool ourselves.
So we really have to have more precision in our language,
and drill down more rigorously
on these questions of consciousness.
If psychedelics could help us to crack
the hard problem of consciousness,
I mean, that's perhaps the biggest question out there.
I mean, it's up there with like,
where did the universe come from?
What is the nature of reality?
And so, if I could think of an experiment I could do
with psychedelics to address that question,
I would've already done that experiment.
And, you know, right now I don't think anyone can,
but I think we should remain open to the possibility
that psychedelics could be used to address the hard problem.
But yeah, we need to think about it
because that really seems like a difficult problem to crack.
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