"Hard problem of consciousness" defined by Scot Fagerland and Andy Meaden

Quoting:

A camera and an eye can both “see”. However, we would never say that a camera is “aware” of what it sees. A camera could see a hammer swinging directly at it yet never discern fear that it is about to be destroyed. How do people and animals become aware of themselves and their surroundings in a way that is different from cameras or computers?

The traditional religious answer was that we are animated by spirits, something external to our bodies. This is yet another resort to the secret trillionaire fallacy: it doesn’t explain how intangible spirits would be self-aware. Rather than wasting our time wondering how consciousness would work in an invisible spirit that may or may not exist, the modern approach is to see how much we can learn about consciousness in the physical world.

9.VI: Consciousness, Communication, Competition, Cooperation
HOW LIFE GOT THIS WAY
https://www.theevolutionofhuman.com/chapter-09/section-09-vi/

The traditional religious answer

Not just religious, but also philosophical.

was

Catholics and Aristotelians, Muslims and Platonics are not gone yet. Some may wish we were, we aren't.

that we are animated by spirits,

Yes.

something external to our bodies.

Not quite in the case of those animating us.

This is yet another resort to

... haven't seen the previous one.

the secret trillionaire fallacy:

This sounds like trying to define the belief in God (and spirits and similar) away as a fallacy because it involves the actual power to perform what is to be explained.

it doesn’t explain how intangible spirits would be self-aware.

The proof rather goes the other way round: anything material we see has material properties which are no explanation of it's being self-aware, and generally it isn't. This means consciousness needs to have another principle than matter. This means we need to have a non-material aspect.

Rather than wasting our time wondering how consciousness would work in an invisible spirit that may or may not exist,

How about looking at how it works inside us, in the "spiritual" or mental realm which is invisible (per se, though not as to its utterances) to external observers and "visible" to ourselves? By introspection?

the modern approach is to see how much we can learn about consciousness in the physical world.

Fairly little, but something very important: consciousness isn't physical.

Next paragraph after the following one actually makes this point for me:

The brain creates an “inner world”, a mind. We don’t know how this is done; it is the “hard problem” of consciousness.

Thank you very much. It can be restated as: we know it doesn't. There are no ways not already tried and rejected for it.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Stephen Harding
17.IV.2021