Comment by axguscbklp

Discussions of consciousness tend to frustrate me a bit. So many otherwise smart people, for some reason, simply do not understand the hard problem of consciousness. They'll say things like "well, consciousness is just a given pattern of physical stuff" but they do not realize what to me is an obvious objection - to say that consciousness is equivalent to a given pattern of physical stuff does not explain why that pattern of physical stuff is not simply present without any consciousness associated with it. I can imagine a being that is physically identical to a human in every way, but is not conscious - there is no reason to think that intelligent behavior requires consciousness. So what is the difference between such a being and a conscious human, if the two are physically identical?