The 'hard problem' of consciousness, dating back to Leibniz, posits that no third-person description of the brain's mechanics can explain first-person experience. If you enlarged a brain to the size of a mill and walked inside, you'd see parts moving, but never the feeling of subjectivity itself.
Sam Harris warns that profound psychedelic experiences can create a false goal. Seekers may mistakenly believe spiritual freedom means permanently sustaining an altered state, rather than integrating insights to skillfully navigate ordinary consciousness, which is the aim of practices like meditation.
Consciousness (subjective experience) and intelligence (problem-solving ability) are distinct and not interdependent. One can exist without the other, a crucial distinction often missed in AI debates. This framework helps clarify why a highly intelligent system might not be sentient or conscious.
Neuroscientists initially believed that identifying the 'neural correlates of consciousness' would explain it. However, researchers like Christoph Koch realized that even finding the exact neurons responsible for experience only answers 'where' it happens, not 'how' or 'why' physical matter creates subjective feeling.
Michael Pollan argues that psychedelics make consciousness, normally a transparent medium for experiencing reality, an object of awareness itself. He compares this to a smudge on a windshield, which suddenly makes you notice the glass you've been looking through all along.
Once coded as a left-wing counter-cultural symbol and targeted by President Nixon, psychedelics are now gaining bipartisan support. This shift is largely driven by their potential to treat veterans' PTSD, creating unlikely allies among right-leaning politicians and military organizations.