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:

When we've said that a person is in pain, that she knows which bit of her hurts and that this is what's made her react in a certain way, we've said all that there is to say within the scope of the personal vocabulary.... If we look for alternative modes of explanation, we must abandon the explanatory level of people and their sensations and activities and turn to the sub-personal level of brains and events in the nervous system.