This is made in philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warberton.

Philosophy bites is available at W.

philosophy bites.com.

Philosophy bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.

Ned Block is professor at New York University of not just one subject but three, philosophy,

psychology and neural science.

His seminal work on consciousness combines all three elements.

The problem of what constitutes consciousness is as vexing as any in philosophy. Block believes one can be conscious of something without realizing it.

Sounds counterintuitive? Let him explain.

Netblock, working in philosophy bites.

I'm glad to be here.

Now the topic we're going to focus on is the problem of consciousness.

What is the problem of consciousness?

I don't think there's one problem of consciousness.

In fact, one of the interesting things about the neuroscience of consciousness

is it's come up with some problems that we didn't quite know we had.

One of the most interesting such problems is the problem

of whether conscious perception is as they say rich or sparse.

And the reason we have this issue

is because it's been discovered in psychology

that people can surprisingly miss obvious items in space right in front of their eyes if they are attending elsewhere.

One interesting example that you can find versions of on the internet on YouTube is an example in

...