The really hard problem

"If consciousness is "the hard problem" in mind science - explaining how the amazing private world of consciousness emerges from neuronal activity - then "the really hard problem," Owen Flanagan wrties in this book, is explaining how meaning is possible in the material world. How can we make sense of the magic and mystery of life naturalistically, without an appeal to the supernatural? How do we say truthful and enchanting things about being human if we accept the fact that we are finite material beings living in a material world, or, in Flanagan's words, short-lived pieces of organized…