Warning:
In-context, the question obviously is not committing an invalid reification (“science know”) (as if science is itself an entity that can know). How do I know that the question is obviously not committing that invalid reification? DUH.
Because a question is not an entity that can commit. That’s #2. See footnote on sister-blog A Pocketful of Poesy involving literary fallacies. #1 is that there’s a far better/more harmless interpretation staring every reader of this post in the EASY-KNOWING FACE (through the eyes to the mind or minds {or mind’s} behind):
It’s synecdoche!
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Ah, synecdoche!
That figure of speech in which the part (here, “science”) is used to represent the whole (or less commonly, the whole can also be used to represent the part. Figures of speech tend a bit lax with the precision prized by logicians! Freer of use, don’t cha know. So. Parentheses closed “).”
- “The ‘whole’ of science, you say?” Well, let’s at least concede these parts of that whole:
- What do scientists know?
- What can we know from the body of scientific findings, not omitting considerations of present-day consensus, but neither {mindful of improvement, development, refinement and evolution of such consensus, which is a given, given due process of science and hence, progress} being ruled by a ham-fisted emphasis on consensus?).
All italics in this answer mine, btw. All ALL-CAPS for emphasis as well, and esp. come to section headers: all bolds.
Foundations laid: that question again?
- What does science know about (our) consciousness?
- Much for sure, in cases of individual datum (and even data) whose face can be traced by the reader/reviewer to recognized valid basis.
- Much for UNSURE, in cases of conflicting yet seemingly equally well-based studies, theories, findings et al!
Considerations complete.
Conclusion?
NOT MUCH for certain.
Yet ever is certainty the enemy of process and finding, in which science goes ever and anon whole hog on full-forward heedful bearings in every direction that proves both A) fruitful enough to secure funding! AND B) promising enough to draw talented scientists into that breach.
Confidence does not come from certainty, but from every sure improvement one can make upon certainty. Over certainty’s rocked, wrecked, bloated and decomposing, rotting and/or fossilized corpse does science trod roughshod and sure. Confidence…comes from sure and proven competence at improving upon certainty.
I find the scientific study of consciousness much worth review and investigation, even if yea, to me (from all the seeming-conflicting paths of discovery available, and the disparate conclusions that spring as-yet unreconciled, unreconcilable from them in-depth and at-surface, on more or less all sides of biology, physiology, even the philosophy of science advances!
I mean, “advances!)”
Pardon me. I got lost in a parenthetical. That my dear reader is a product of one thing only:
- The sure enthusiasm I have for this area of human study, and especially where science comes into the “game” and gain with a BIG FOOT, as Holmes might say: the game IS a foot.
- I jest. “Afoot,” he’d say.
- And HOLMES IS RIGHT-ON, where science plods sure! Sure-footed, yet plodding, in the realm of consciousness (where else can homo sapiens sapiens PLOD IN THOUGHT? Hmmmmm?). Many paths remain open, some seemingly choked with growth - including impeding obstacles.
Science proceeds as we do: apace.
In step-by-step generational progress, well-punctuated by instance of breakthrough - which, by the way, such “instance” remains open to question and further validation, and it so behooves us not to pronounce “EUREKA!” too swift and sure, before the peers and further experimenters weigh in. For Lo! The path behind is strewn with the bloated, riddled corpses of things that only seemed breakthrough, at the time.
We know this.
We are not science.
Yet near the limit, each of us must be a scientist.
Suggested viewing.
Ryan Karels: The Outer Limit. Episode #1: The Amygdala
The Outer Limit #1 - The Amygdala - video Dailymotion
No one has to bleed or view to the limit.
We can simply veer clear of the limit of human investigation, in a given area! The bleeding edge of theory and experiment to verify and falsify theory is surprisingly easy and convenient to avoid. Why, I do it myself in every area where interest lacks.
For me, my driving yet nonetheless traipsing, meandering course of potent and unqualified interest in science is a vehicle of recreation far more than of creation, yet I find great hope, support, and some education therein which has served me mightily in life.
The might of science is one of the mightiest, and such might as that (witness so many revolutions in telecommunications, processor techniques and materials sprung from quantum mechanics - a field in which theory was, is and remains seemingly irreconcilably fractured! YET FROM ITS TRUTH AND REALITY SPRING SUCH FRUITS, you are LITERALLY VIEWING IT. NOW) is the sort that does indeed make right, or at least correct (by incessant course-correction) by and by, proved not by “logic,” but in time and good use. Or ill use.
For good, bad, indifferent, ugly or beautiful (by another’s eye, mind, et al):
- My enthusiasm for science generally is strong!
- For the engine of scientific progress IS falsification.
“Self-falsification,” for those who simply must (or figuratively choose) to reify. No instance of reification can ever validly be called invalid except and unless it can be proved to fruit into invalid conclusions.
Otherwise, consider it may have been a figure of speech. Few people, seriously indeed, think a question (or a field of human endeavor) is an entity capable of intent.
Human consciousness is famously considered a “hard problem”
…in the quarters of many to most of those seriously investigating it. I don’t see what’s so hard about it myself, but the reason for THAT is very clear:
- Bad at math. I am.
- I’m not doing any of the real work! SHEESH
That is my answer. All faults in it are mine, and no reflection upon our good and neighborhood friend (and yours), CAPTAIN SCIENCE MAN and his far more savvy and puissant sidekicks, COMMANDER SCIENCE WOMAN and GENERAL SCIENCE PERSON!
Big Science. It has its points, doesn’t it?
Concerning consciousness, it has far too many of them, and the picture is as-yet pleasantly far from adding up to any one (1) definitive and fully-explanatory description of reality.
This is BOON.
For science as a pursuit and (for those of you) an adventure, it is and must be boon. Is it not? How not?
I yield the field.
Comments are open, all as per.
Come with your well-laid cases from (cited) basis on merit, and you shall not find me wanting. Particularly.
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