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do you consider yourself to be religious or otherwise spiritual, Beehaw? (beehaw.org)
submitted 3 years ago by [M] to c/chat@beehaw.org
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[–] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

I would go a step further and say that there are many things that science, by nature, cannot answer. For example, what consciousness is and how it arises as a phenomenon.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    I think a scientists reply to that would be: the phenomenon of 'conciousness' is a result of the complex chemical reactions between clusters of highly organized matter. Science's ability to answer questions about consciousness is limited only by the precision of our tools and the sophistication of our methods, both of which will only continue to improve. The fact that we are currently limited, in our tools and our methods, is the only reason that other less quantatative methods of understanding consciousness (like philosophy) are more effective.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    This is a typical take, but the the hard problem of consciousness has very strenuously denied neuroscientists for well over a century at this point. We know a lot more about the systems of the brain, but no more about the nature of consciousness itself.

    It's still an open debate, some people don't believe the hard problem is unsolvable, but on every debate there are really smart people who defend absurd positions. The reason I think it is unsolvable is that consciousness is by definition unobservable, except by the subject.

    We can know a lot about the brain, neurons and structures etc. But that doesn't really get us closer to understanding how an aggregation of impulses and chemical signalling takes us from what is essentially inert matter to a brain.

    If you're interested, the book On Purpose by philosopher Michael Ruse has a chapter on it that is succinct and up to date with the latest neuroscience research. I am sure there are better books out there on the subject but I can only recommend what I've read.

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