{"id":36111,"date":"2016-08-25T01:01:40","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T07:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=36111"},"modified":"2016-08-25T01:01:40","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T07:01:40","slug":"will-consciousness-remain-a-mystery-to-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/08\/will-consciousness-remain-a-mystery-to-science.html","title":{"rendered":"Will consciousness remain a mystery to science?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_36112\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36112\" style=\"width: 596px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/08\/Bergen_night_tunliweb.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-36112\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-36112\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/08\/Bergen_night_tunliweb.jpg\" alt=\"Nighttime Bergen\" width=\"596\" height=\"397\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-36112\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bergen, Norway, by night. I\u2019m posting from the lower right corner, perhaps just slightly out of the photograph (which was taken by Svein-Magne Tunli and which I found on Wikimedia Commons).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a scientist who believes that (mortal) humans\u00a0will never understand consciousness:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wavefunction.fieldofscience.com\/2016\/08\/physicist-ed-witten-on-consciousness-i.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/wavefunction.fieldofscience.com\/2016\/08\/physicist-ed-witten-on-consciousness-i.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This is something like the position held by the philosopher Colin McGinn, which is often called <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/New_mysterianism\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">\u201cmysterianism.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I suspect that they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And I think it may be because consciousness is primary, basic, irreducible, and, accordingly, not explicable in terms of \u201cconstituent parts\u201d or causes. \u00a0I believe it to be one of the few \u201cgivens\u201d in the universe. \u00a0Like axioms in geometry, it\u2019s a starting point, not the conclusion of a chain of reasoning.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Posted from Bergen, Norway<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 Here\u2019s a scientist who believes that (mortal) humans\u00a0will never understand consciousness: \u00a0 http:\/\/wavefunction.fieldofscience.com\/2016\/08\/physicist-ed-witten-on-consciousness-i.html \u00a0 This is something like the position held by the philosopher Colin McGinn, which is often called \u201cmysterianism.\u201d \u00a0 I suspect that they\u2019re right. \u00a0 And I think it may be because consciousness is primary, basic, irreducible, and, accordingly, not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Will consciousness remain a mystery to science?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; 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