Read part 1: Karl Friston asks, is our experience real, or simply a construct of the brain?


Experience is a construct of the brain. I think all the discussants in the Down the Rabbit Hole debate agreed with this position. I would like to add to this that we furthermore have no control over how our brain constructs our experiences. Experiences are not the result of rationally controlled conscious processes. It takes place at a level Daniel Dennett once referred to as “the sub-personal level”.

According to Dennett in Content and Consciousness, the distinction between personal level and sub-personal level explanations is the distinction between “the explanatory level of people and their sensations and activities and the sub-personal level of brains and events in the nervous system”. Personal level explanations are distinctive kinds of explanation for persons. Dennett continues: