Consciousness
panpsychism where everything with consciousness is ultimately one unified consciousness
experiencing itself as many. Besides, consciousness can theoretically be changed or replaced at any
point in time, caused by any reasons such as replacement of molecules in the brain due to metabolism
in case of humans, since one cannot prove the existence of its consciousness in the past nor the future.
A common misconception is that memories, emotions, and thoughts are what make up consciousness.
In fact, those are merely traits of our physical body. A consciousness can be replaced while keeping its
traits. One may argue that consciousnesses can be equal, making the change or replacement of
consciousness invalid. However, since consciousness is subjective in nature, every consciousness is
distinct. Due to the explanatory gap and how little this definition explains how consciousness may exist
and function, along with the fact that science cannot be used to explain subjective consciousness,
investigating subjective consciousness is nearly not scientific at all. Instead, since consciousness is
what one experiences at every moment in time hence being an inseparable part of what we consider
reality, solving the problem of consciousness is very much philosophical.
One could argue that consciousness is a phenomenon being experienced every day and the definition
of science is to investigate these phenomena which makes the problem of consciousness scientific.
Also, since we have not fully understood the physical world, the explanation for consciousness may be
found using new methods that we can not yet understand as scientific knowledge advances. This is why
solving the problem of subjective consciousness still has some connection to science.
In conclusion, consciousness can be defined objectively or subjectively. In the case of defining it
objectively, solving the problem of consciousness is very much scientific. It boosts the advancement of
science and technology but at the cost of ignoring its subjective nature. If it is defined subjectively, it is
almost a fully philosophical problem relating to our understanding of reality.
References
Chalmers, D. (1995) ‘Facing up to the problem of consciousness’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2:
200-19
(1995a) ‘The puzzle of conscious experience’, Scientific American 273.6: 80-6
Papineau, D. (2010) Introducing Consciousness: a graphic guide . London
Symes, J. ed. (2022) Philosophers on Consciousness. London
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