Such pessimism! But why not instead begin with a different set of assumptions. Consciousness may well not exist, it's just a word. People have made up words for patterns they perceive but do not exist all the time. Osiris does not exist, afterlife does not exist, yet they moved thousands of tons of rock to build pyramids.

- Free will does not exist either, let's face it, the evidence will keep getting more and more conclusive. So, why despair? Our brains are not "magic machines acting on a dangerous world", our brains generate the world. Free will is our little game.

- All of our thinking is ex-post facto rationalizations. We seem to be good at creating models of this generated world. There is no distinct boundary between "reasoned thinking", "a hunch" and "trust your feelings", they re all beliefs that stem from different sets of assumptions.

- Our feelings are calculations, for which we don't yet have a model, but a hunch (e.g. time is absolute) is not to be discarded lightly, but only when reasoned thinking provides a much more satisfactory view of the world (time is relative). Very few tools are of guidance in that respect, only Occam's razor.

- The world that our brain generates includes the AI machines of the future, for which we will have to somehow rationalize and reason about even without a good model.

- Until we build a better model of our individual and collective behavior, our motivations and our beliefs, we must stick with the current political/judicial model. Neuroscience has not yet deciphered human intention to a comprehensive mathematical theory. Patience, we 'll get there.