🌹
It all begins with the color red.
You’re standing in front of a red rose.
Your eyes capture the light. Your brain processes the signal. Electrochemical reactions fire up. So far, so good.
But… that still doesn’t explain the most astonishing thing:
🟥 Why does red feel that way?
No brain scan, no scientific formula, no MRI can show what red looks like from the inside.
A) How colors are processed.
True
False
✅ Correct. We can model transduction and pathways.
❌ Incorrect. Sensory processing is explainable.
B) Which areas of the brain are activated.
True
False
✅ Correct. Imaging links tasks and regions.
❌ Incorrect. Activation maps are measurable.
C) How we respond to stimuli.
True
False
✅ Correct. Behavior can be described and predicted.
❌ Incorrect. Responses are observable.
D) Why seeing red feels that way.
True
False
✅ Correct. The “why it feels like” part remains unexplained.
❌ Incorrect. Mechanisms don’t yield the feel.
🧩
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
We can explain what happens — but not why it’s felt .
This is the riddle at the heart of consciousness: 🧠✨ Something is happening — and it’s being experienced.
This internal, irreducible, non-transferable dimension makes consciousness an enigma.
In 1995, philosopher David Chalmers gave this mystery a name: The Hard Problem of Consciousness.
A) How we attend to stimuli.
True
False
✅ Correct. Attention is a “easy” problem comparatively.
❌ Incorrect. Not the hard problem.
B) How we decide how to respond to stimuli.
True
False
✅ Correct. Decision-making is mechanism-level.
❌ Incorrect. Not Chalmers’ hard problem.
C) How we remember what we already know.
True
False
✅ Correct. Memory is difficult but mechanistic.
❌ Incorrect. Not the hard problem.
D) Why does subjective experience exist?
True
False
✅ Correct. Why/that it’s felt from the inside.
❌ Incorrect. This is the core formulation.
🎨
Qualia: the raw feels of reality
☕ The taste of coffee
💔 The sensation of sadness
🌹 The brightness of red
🔥 The sting of a wound
They’re private, ineffable, and first-person.
A) They are the qualities that each person has.
True
False
✅ Correct. That confuses traits with experience.
❌ Incorrect. Qualia aren’t personality traits.
B) They are the internal qualities of experience — like the taste of coffee or the sharpness of pain.
True
False
✅ Correct. That’s the standard definition.
❌ Incorrect. Qualia = felt qualities.
C) They cannot be shared, measured, or reduced to neural connections.
True
False
✅ Correct. They’re private and not publicly inspectable.
❌ Incorrect. They’re not directly measurable.
D) They are the most basic aspect of consciousness… and the most difficult to explain.
True
False
✅ Correct. That’s why they anchor the hard problem.
❌ Incorrect. They’re central and elusive.
🧟♂️
The philosophical zombie
Imagine a perfect copy of you — same brain, same memories, same quirks. It walks like you, talks like you…
But it feels nothing. It simulates, but doesn’t experience.
Welcome to the thought experiment of the philosophical zombie.
A) What I think rationally, if I explain it in words.
True
False
✅ Correct. Reasoning can be communicated.
❌ Incorrect. Logic can be shared.
B) What I remember, if there are photos or evidence.
True
False
✅ Correct. Memories can be corroborated.
❌ Incorrect. Evidence can be shared.
C) What I feel inside, such as sorrow or astonishment.
True
False
✅ Correct. Inner feel is private.
❌ Incorrect. Qualia aren’t publicly observable.
D) What I decide, if I explain it logically.
True
False
✅ Correct. Decisions and reasons are shareable.
❌ Incorrect. The opaque part is the felt quality.
A) We would know because we’d notice that it is acting.
True
False
✅ Correct. Perfect simulation would look genuine.
❌ Incorrect. You can’t tell from behavior alone.
B) We would know because it doesn’t get emotional; it only pretends.
True
False
✅ Correct. A perfect zombie could emulate emotions.
❌ Incorrect. Emulation can be indistinguishable.
C) We have no way of knowing because we can’t verify that it feels.
True
False
✅ Correct. Consciousness is not directly observable.
❌ Incorrect. That’s the point of the zombie argument.
🤔
Let’s pause to reflect.
Even if neuroscience mapped every neuron in your brain…
Even if we could simulate you perfectly in a computer…
We would still be unable to answer one simple question: “Why does it feel like something to be me?”
A) Because we don’t yet have enough technology.
True
False
✅ Correct. Tech alone won’t reveal “what it’s like”.
❌ Incorrect. It’s a conceptual, not merely technical, gap.
B) Because there is no consensus on whether consciousness exists.
True
False
✅ Correct. Existence isn’t the core dispute.
❌ Incorrect. The puzzle is the inner feel.
C) Because we don’t know why the experience is felt from within.
True
False
✅ Correct. The “why it’s like anything” question remains.
❌ Incorrect. This is precisely the enigma.
D) Because we haven’t yet discovered where in the brain it is.
True
False
✅ Correct. Location doesn’t answer why it feels .
❌ Incorrect. Mapping ≠ explaining subjectivity.
We call these subjective, ineffable qualities qualia .
We all know what red is — but we don’t know if your red feels like my red. We can look at brain waves, but not at the feeling of sadness. We can measure pupil dilation, but not awe. A computer might process information… but does it feel anything?
In the next modules, we’ll explore what consciousness might really be, how it connects to information, and whether this world might be a kind of simulation designed for the evolution of consciousness.
Whether you believe the mind is a function of the brain, a co-pilot with the body, or the fabric in which all experience unfolds…
And maybe, just maybe, you’ve realized that you are not just the thinker, the feeler, or the doer…You are the one who is aware of all three.