Why is this subject so fraught? The brain is a wet computer. Reality is its internal model of the external world informed by imperfect sensory inputs. Consciousness is what thinking feels like. When the brain ceases to function, the individual is destroyed. So what? There's no mystery here. The knowledge to be gained has to do with the operation of the brain, not the nature of "consciousness", whatever that is.
As far as I'm concerned, after Wittgenstein, philosophy has had nothing to do. All the "big questions" are either answerable scientifically as a matter of neurology or they're ill-posed and nonsensical.
Actually, I'm wrong: philosophy does have an occupation these days. It's complicit in the creation of utter nonsense like continental thought and critical theory, all of which amounts of sophistry that justifies us in exercising our world impulses toward magical thinking.
As far as I'm concerned, after Wittgenstein, philosophy has had nothing to do. All the "big questions" are either answerable scientifically as a matter of neurology or they're ill-posed and nonsensical.
Actually, I'm wrong: philosophy does have an occupation these days. It's complicit in the creation of utter nonsense like continental thought and critical theory, all of which amounts of sophistry that justifies us in exercising our world impulses toward magical thinking.
Why bother?