(Once or twice recently I've used this blog like a journal, an aide memoire, to note something that I'd realised, concluded or decided on after a lot of thought. What, after all, does anyone write anything for but that, and in the hope that publishing it might in some way be useful to others? This piece is one more instance of it.)
I am convinced that "consciouness" - the "hard question" - is the sole product of our brain, a material organ of baffling complexity that has a life of its own inside our head - as you might say the human heart or lungs have lives of their own in our body, working over lifetimes with no volition from "us", from whom "we" are.
The evidence is dreams, in which dilemmas, people, incidents, crises and whole worlds exist with a reality that can only be explained by the brain, from its genetic and bio-chemical composition, culture and vast store of the individual's lived experiences and learning, creating a universe it controls and makes sense of in its own way.
When "we" dream, we often recognise familiar content, maybe a lot, in the brain's story, but it's the brain storytelling. Like any other story we think we invent.
