Essay --

Explaining Consciousness Provides Physicalism With Challenges That Place Limits On Scientific Knowledge, And What It Can Uncover About Consciousness Consciousness is one of those topics that are in the position of trying to understand one’s own organism with one’s own organism. The topic of consciousness is so elusive that it mirrors child hood games of trying to catch your own shadow. In the World of philosophy, discerning the truth about consciousness is no childish game. Materialist J.J.C Smart and philosopher Thomas Nagel agree that qualia exist, but are diametrically opposed when it comes to what consciousness is. In this paper I will argue for Nagel’s point of view that consciousness falls outside the nucleus of scientific explanation. Physicalism cannot objectively uncover consciousness using scientific methods because consciousness cannot be reduced to material parts. If Smart’s reductionist view points were correct, where as physics can explain all there is to know about everything in the universe, then why does consciousness seem to evade physical laws of investigation? Explaining consciousn ess provides physicalism with challenges that place limits on scientific knowledge, and what it can uncover about consciousness. J.J.C Smart proposes that a scientific explanation of consciousness must fall with in universal physical laws. Furthermore, if science could not explain consciousness within scientific laws, than we would have a problem called a nomological dangler. For Smart, this is unbelievable. It would seem that this move by Smart is one based on scientific bias. The nature of consciousness rests in the experience of the first person account, and if philosophy of mind is to have a complete scientific knowledge of the... ...the sense that they are easily detectable. Physically looking for something that does not have a physical structure is like trying to get rid of the left by going to the right side. Ultimately, science is looking in the wrong direction because it cannot by default take into consideration first person quotes. In conclusion, it is very difficult to come up with scientific solutions to the problem of consciousness. Science may never be able to solve the mysteries of qualia. New methods might need to be introduced to uncover personal experience that lie far off in the future. Philosophers will just need to continue in their search for a complete theory of a science of mind. In addition, humility within the sciences may go along way towards an understanding of consciousness. â€Å" We do not know what consciousness means outside the frame of personality†- Albert Einstein