Eliezer: First of all, I didn't claim it was magic. If you're confused as to why I bring this up, see the last time I said this:

You did not break the "perception of wearing socks" into understandable steps, as you demanded for the perception of free will.

And why did I claim you did that the distinction was necessary? Here is what you said in that post:

Perhaps someone will see an opportunity to be clever, and say: "Okay. I believe in free will because I have free will. There, I'm done." Of course it's not that easy. ... You have to be able to break the causal chain into smaller steps, and explain the steps in terms of elements not themselves confusing.

So, you claim that free will wasn't broken into understandable steps, but belief that you are wearing socks, was.

Because you did not break the "belief that you are wearing socks" into understandable steps, you are holding the claims to different standards, a subtle but correctible kind of confirmation bias.

Yes, there has been impressive work in neuroscience. But image recognition has not been solved and is therefore not yet understood. You reveal your agreement when you use CAPTCHAs to keep out spammers and those CAPTCHAs work.

So, I don't think you can explain why you believe you are wearing socks until you can explain that step, which no one yet can. Ban me if you like, but I don't think you can sustain that explanation until your CAPTCHA barrier is broken.