Why does experience feel like anything at all?
Why does any of this feel like something? Researchers, philosophers and contemplative traditions are read side by side here, without treating them as interchangeable.
Where does awareness begin?
What happens when we look closely at the experience of being aware? Before thought and language, there is something it is like to be you. This question asks where that starts, and whether it has an edge at all.
See the upcoming essayOne topic, three angles.
What the brain does
Neuroscience can map which patterns of brain activity go with reported experience. It has far less to say about why any of that activity is accompanied by feeling at all.
Why it feels like something
Philosophers call this the hard problem. Positions run from physicalism, which says experience is a physical process, to panpsychism, which says it is basic to matter.
What attention finds
Meditative traditions treat awareness as something to observe directly through sustained attention, and to describe from the inside before trying to explain it.
Where to read more.
Background reading on the topic. Not a recommendation by SoulToRole.
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