Well before I started learning to program, I was carefully reading David Chalmers' early magnum opus The Conscious Mind. I still find myself convinced by the argument: consciousness is a basic ontological feature of reality, the part of reality that constitutes my existence.

I am horrified that we're taking that Cartesian insight to mean we should actually put our consciousnesses inside little boxes that simulate the rest of the grand mystery of reality—because what's the difference if the lie is good enough?

It makes this atheist want to go out into nature and find the Goddess.