A Philosophical Grasping at Consciousness

Consciousness is the most fundamental and elusive facet of the human existence. In conversation, we refer to consciousness as the property of our minds that produces the richness of the lived experience. Colloquially, we agree that consciousness is physically grounded in our brain — though many argue simply having a brain is not a sufficient condition for consciousness. At best, we have a fuzzy sense of the causal and definitional properties of consciousness: even though consciousness is an essential part of the human existence, we have little understanding of precisely what…