The Fruitless Search for the Source of Consciousness

If the scientific method focuses on the testable, then the genesis of consciousness is not a scientific question.

Photo by David Matos on Unsplash

Consciousness isn’t a “hard problem”, as the philosopher David Chalmers famously described it (1996). It’s an unsolvable one. Any explanation we come up with for it, from a theological one to a materialist one, begs questions we simply can’t answer.

If we offer God or some other “supernatural” source as the answer, we must then explain where the consciousness for this apparently intelligent creator came from. Simply saying this source is eternal is just another way of saying consciousness always existed. In other words, it’s just an inherent part of the universe, which is ultimately no different than suggesting it’s an inherent quality of matter itself (a position I will come to shortly).

As for consciousness emerging from matter, this won’t do either. By what means does unconscious matter, if put together just so and in sufficient quantities, suddenly start acting consciously? If a single atom, molecule or cell is by itself unconscious, why should the sum of all this unconscious stuff under any circumstance start producing consciousness?

If we assert that consciousness is, at least in principle, a solvable problem, we must first articulate what would constitute evidence that our explanation is the right one. For example, a materialist contending that the brain produces consciousness must first offer a testable hypothesis that could explain what it is about a brain structured like ours that leads it to produce consciousness.

Likewise, anyone arguing the brain acts as a kind of receiver of consciousness from elsewhere, be it some sort of Cartesian homunculus or somewhere else, must first identify this consciousness ‘receiver’ and also provide us with a means of verifying its function scientifically.

In neither case does it do any good to point out that braindead people show no signs of consciousness or that those suffering from some kind of brain damage exhibit altered states of it. Either side in the debate can reasonably respond that either the generator or the receiver of consciousness has simply been knocked out or…