Monday, September 28, 2009

What am I doing

Reading an article about science, struck about this point about neuroscience in particular.

Or look at neuroscience. Only a few decades ago, scientists were putting forth confident conjectures about "the bridging principle," the neural event that would explain how the activity of our brain cells creates the subjective experience of consciousness. All sorts of bridges were proposed, from 40 Hz oscillations in the cerebral cortex to quantum coherence in microtubules. These were the biological processes that supposedly turned the water of the brain into the wine of the mind.

But scientists don't talk about these kinds of bridging principles these days. While neuroscience continues to make astonishing progress in learning about the details of the brain--we are a strange loop of kinase enzymes and synaptic chemistry--these details only highlight our enduring enigma, which is that we don't experience these cellular details. It is ironic, but true: The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.

I don't know... maybe the biggest miracle will be to prove that this is what we cannot find. It might be religious, even.