The "thinking" mind is one of the simplest parts of the brain. Ironically, what philosophers call the Hard Problem of Consciousness is much easier than the "eas

The "thinking" mind is one of the simplest parts of the brain. Ironically, what philosophers call the Hard Problem of Consciousness is much easier than the "easy" problem. The mechanisms by which we perceive the world are vastly more complex than the mechanisms by which we process and store our perceptions, and those parts of the brain have been evolving for hundreds of millions of years. The sheer amount of optimization is what makes it so hard to replicate. We can make artificial systems that outperform tiny invertebrates, but we still have a way to go. Fortunately, our rate of progress is rapidly accelerating, so I'm still confident we'll be able to figure it out in the next few decades.