The Mystery of Consciousness

You exist, right ? Prove it?

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve by not dying"
Woody Allen

"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns-the ones we don't know we don't know."
Donald Rumsfeld, philosopher

AN UNBRIDGEABLE GULF
Colin McGinn

There apperas to be what Wittgenstein called an "unbridgeable gulf" between the brain and the conscious mind. The paradox of the mind-body problem is that the explanatory causes of consciousness in the brain are not discoverable by inspecting the brain, and introspection cannot reveal the rootedness of consciousness in brain tissue. Our modes of knowing about the mind-brain nexus don't home in on the glue that binds the two together.
Nevertheless, consciousness is surely a natural biological product, as devoid of the otherwordly as digestion and blood circulation. It comes and goes, waxes, wanes, grows, dies.
So why is it so hard to tame scientifically? The answer, I suggest, lies not in the stars but in ourselves: our brains have not evolved with necessary equipment to resolve this mystery. Our brains are good for getting us around and mating successfuly, and even for doing some serious physics, but they go blank when they try too understand how they produce the awareness that is our prized essence. The consolation is that we shall always be of intense interest to ourselves , long after quantum theory has become old hat.