WE ARE ALL DESIGNIST (profanity alert):

Seth began studying consciousness in the mid-Nineties, a time when advances in computing and brain imaging were giving scientists new tools for understanding the mind. In 1994, the Australian philosopher David Chalmers outlined the challenge ahead: in a talk at the inaugural Science of Consciousness Conference in Tuscon, Arizona, Chalmers set out what he described as "the hard problem of consciousness". How can objective, physical matter give rise to the unique, subjective experience of consciousness? How could anyone adequately describe the inimitable feeling of being you, with reference only to your brain and biology?

Philosophers and scientists have tried to tackle this hard problem in different ways. Panpsychists argue that consciousness is a fundamental quality of all matter - that a deckchair exhibits a different kind of consciousness from you or I, but is conscious nonetheless. At the other extreme, illusionists argue that consciousness is only imaginary. Seth, whose academic background spans physics, psychology, computing and neuroscience, says he has come to another, more satisfying conclusion.

His research has led him to radical positions: the way you see yourself and the world is a controlled hallucination, Seth argues. Rather than passively perceiving our surroundings, our brains are constantly making and refining predictions about what we expect to see; in this way, we create our world. He points to the example of #TheDress, the viral photo of a cocktail dress that to some people appears gold-and-white, and to others as blue-and-black. In his Ted talk, Seth twice plays an audio clip of a high-pitched, distorted voice that is so incomprehensible it could be speaking any language or none at all. Then he primes his audience with the sentence: "I think Brexit is a terrible idea." When he plays the clip again, the words are so immediately discernible it's hard to imagine how they couldn't have been.

Sometimes the term hallucination confuses people (Seth wishes there were a better word): it might suggest that perception is arbitrary, or that things don't exist. In fact, if our brains are working properly, we're constantly updating our predictions based on feedback from our senses - which is why ordinary perception is a "controlled hallucination", not a fever-dream. That said, Seth told me as we strolled across campus in search of a sandwich, he's open to the idea that the physical world doesn't exist in the manner we think it does.

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