Here's a question that sounds like science fiction but is being asked in deadly earnest by serious philosophers. Does consciousness require flesh and blood? It's a question I wrestled with myself when I wrote a novel that addresses the very nature of consciousness in the Universe, so a new paper – claiming the answer is almost certainly no – caught my eye at once. That's the conclusion of Eric Schwitzgebel, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. In