 While the human mind and consciousness attract a special sense of awe, the hard problem of consciousness is not all that different from the problems facing attempts to make sense of the patient as a whole. Patients live; their bodies function every second of the day, via an astounding series of interconnected processes. It stretches the imagination to think that a vital spirit or such is giving unity to each life (human or non-); it stretches the imagination in another way to think that we humans are simply skin bags of chemical reactions.