The nature of human experience, or consciousness, has divided thinkers for centuries. The Scottish philosopher Hume saw experience as nothing more than a bundle of perceptions, and denied the existence of a self holding them all together. Kant disagreed, arguing that sensation had to be organised by concepts for there to be experience. It is a debate that has echoed through the Western tradition. You might think science would have settled the matter, but the same dispute is still present amongst neuroscientists. Some argue that sensation is independent of how we think, a neutral bedrock of data which enables us to experience reality. While others claim what we take to be reality is an illusion created by our brain.
Do our thoughts and concepts shape and structure experience and what we take to be reality? Are current theories of neuroscience taking sides in this deeper underlying philosophical dispute? Does the existence of the self and the nature of reality depend on our philosophical outlook, or is there a fact of the matter that we might uncover?
