‘Why Can’t Science Explain Consciousness?’

Notice the following:

Why Can’t Science Explain Consciousness?

November 11, 2019

For much of the 20th century, there was a great taboo against querying the mysterious inner world of consciousness — it was not taken to be a fitting topic for “serious science.” Things have changed a lot, and there is now broad agreement that the problem of consciousness is a serious scientific issue. But many consciousness researchers underestimate the depth of the challenge, believing that we just need to continue examining the physical structures of the brain to work out how they produce consciousness. …

The problem of consciousness, however, is radically unlike any other scientific problem. One reason is that consciousness is unobservable. You can’t look inside someone’s head and see their feelings and experiences. If we were just going off what we can observe from a third-person perspective, we would have no grounds for postulating consciousness at all.

Of course, scientists are used to dealing with unobservables. Electrons, for example, are too small to be seen. But scientists postulate unobservable entities in order to explain what we observe, such as lightning or vapor trails in cloud chambers. But in the unique case of consciousness, the thing to be explained cannot be observed. We know that consciousness exists not through experiments but through our immediate awareness of our feelings and experiences. …

While our current scientific approach offers no theory at all — only correlations — the traditional alternative of claiming that consciousness is in the soul leads to a profligate picture of nature in which mind and body are distinct. https://www.livescience.com/what-is-consciousness-mystery.html

Scientists cannot explain spiritual matters as their focus is physical. Consciousness may not be an entirely physical matter.

Notice that some Chinese scientists have been hoping to find something that is not physical in the human brain:

Chinese scientists to try to find the HUMAN SOUL with £100m state-of-the-art brain scanner

Updated 20 December 2018

CHINESE scientists are developing a £100m state-of-the-art brain scanner to try and find the human soul.

They will use powerful magnetic forces to observe the structure and activities of every neuron in a living brain.

The aim is to build the world’s most powerful MRI device – which may one day be able to help answer one of life’s big questions.

The mystical soul, according to many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions, is the true essence of a living being.

Simply stated, it is said to be the part of a person that is not physical …

“It will show us a different world with phenomenon unseen before … maybe even the soul,” one scientist told the SCMP.

“We may for the first time capture a full picture of human consciousness or even the essence of life itself,” said another physicist. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8017068/chinese-scientists-to-try-to-find-the-human-soul-with-100m-state-of-the-art-brain-scanner/

It sounds like they are looking, not for life or the “soul” per se, but for what the Bible calls the spirit of man.

The Bible talks about the non-believers being “vain in their imaginations” (Romans 1:21, KJV)–and that is what this Chinese project sounds like to me–though the idea that the scientists have that there is something non-physical is a positive.

The Bible also teaches:

29…God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7:29)

Unless God were to allow it, something physical will not find something spiritual.

Humans have the spirit of man in them, whereas animals, including the other primates, do not. The reality that there is a spirit in humans is taught in both the Old and New Testaments:

8 But there is a spirit in man,
And the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. (Job 32:8)

11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? (1 Corinthians 2:11)

Many scientists will not admit that there is a spirit in man that God gave.

But there is.

Back in 1978, the old Worldwide Church of God put out a booklet written by Herbert W. Armstrong titled What Science Can’t Discover About The Human Mind. Here are some extracts from it:

WHY cannot the greatest minds solve world problems? Scientists have said, “Given sufficient knowledge, and we shall solve all human problems and cure all our evils.” Since 1960 the world’s fund of knowledge has doubled. But humanity’s evils also have doubled. …

But the greatest human minds have never comprehended that divinely-revealed KNOWLEDGE. It is as if God our Maker had sent his message to us in an unbreakable secret code.

And the greatest human minds have never cracked that secret code. Modern Science cannot understand it. Psychologists do not themselves understand of what the human mind is composed. …

There is virtually no difference in shape and construction between animal brain and human brain. The brains of elephants, whales, and dolphins are larger than human brain, and the chimp’s brain is slightly smaller.

Qualitatively the human brain may be very slightly superior, but not enough to remotely account for the difference in output.

What, then, can account for the vast difference? Science cannot adequately answer. Some scientists, in the field of brain research, conclude that, of necessity, there has to be some nonphysical component in human brain that does not exist in animal brain. But most scientists will not admit the possibility of the existence of the nonphysical.

What other explanation is there? Actually, outside of the very slight degree of physical superiority of human brain, science has NO explanation, due to unwillingness to concede even the possibility of the spiritual.

When man refuses to admit even the very existence of his own Maker, he shuts out of his mind vast oceans of basic true knowledge, fact, and UNDERSTANDING. When he substitutes FABLE for truth, he is, of all men, MOST IGNORANT, though he professes himself to be wise. …

MAN was made out of the dust of the ground. He receives his temporary human life from air, breathed in and out of his nostrils. His life is in the blood (Gen. 9:4, 6). But the lifeblood is oxidized by breathing air, even as gasoline in the carburetor of an automobile. Therefore breath is the “breath of life” even as the life is in the blood.

Notice carefully that MAN, made wholly of matter, BECAME a living soul as soon as the BREATH gave him his temporary physical life. The scripture does NOT say “immortal” soul. Man does not have an “immortal” soul. He IS a soul as soon as physical LIFE enters him.

The Hebrew word for “soul” is nephesh. In Genesis 1:20-24, animals are called nephesh three times — only the translators translated the Hebrew word there “creature.” Animals have the same temporary physio-chemical existence as man. Both die the same death (Eccl. 3:19-20).

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). Again, God’s Word says: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek.18:20). Adam was a soul, and God said to him, in regard to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “… in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). But Satan denied this, and Adam and Eve believed Satan, as most of humanity has done ever since.

So let us UNDERSTAND! Man is FLESH and BLOOD — composed wholly of MATTER — and that living matter IS a living soul.

The SOUL is composed of physical MATTER, not Spirit.

I have explained that human brain is almost identical to animal brain. But man was made in the form and shape of God, to have a special relationship with God — to have the potential of being born into the FAMILY of God. And God is SPIRIT (John 4:24). To make it possible to bridge the gap — or to make the transition of MANKIND, composed wholly of MATTER, into SPIRIT beings in God’s Kingdom, then to be composed wholly of Spirit, and at the same time to give MAN a MIND like God’s — God put a spirit in each human.

In Job 32:8, we read, “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”

This is a great TRUTH, understood by but very few.

I call this spirit the HUMAN spirit, for it is IN each human, even though it is SPIRIT ESSENCE and not matter. It is NOT a spirit person or being. It is not the MAN, but spirit essence IN the man. It is NOT a soul — the physical human is a soul. The human spirit imparts the power of INTELLECT to the human brain.

The human spirit does not supply human LIFE — the human LIFE is in the physical BLOOD, oxidized by the BREATH of life.

It is that nonphysical component in the human brain that does not exist in the brain of animals. It is the ingredient that makes possible the transition from human to divine, without changing matter into spirit, at the time of resurrection. That I will explain a little later.
Let me make clear a few essential points about this spirit in man. It is spirit essence, just as in matter air is essence, and so is water. This human spirit cannot see. The physical BRAIN sees, through the eyes. The human spirit IN a person cannot hear. The brain hears through the ears. This human spirit cannot think.

The brain thinks — although the spirit imparts the power to think, whereas brute animal brains without such spirit cannot, except in the most elementary manner. ...

Just as no dumb animal can know the things of man’s knowledge, neither could man, by brain alone, except by the spirit of man — the human spirit — that is in man. So also, in the same manner, even a man cannot know — comprehend — the things of God, unless or until he receives another spirit — the Holy Spirit of GOD.

Stated still another way, all humans have from birth a spirit called “the spirit of man” which is IN THEM. Notice carefully that this spirit is NOT the man. It is something IN THE MAN. A man might swallow a small marble. It is then something in the man, but it is not the man or any part of him as a man. The man was made of the dust of the ground — mortal. This human spirit is not the soul. It is something IN the soul which itself IS the physical MAN.

Notice, further, verse 14: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

So, from birth, God gives US one spirit, which for lack of a better term I call a human spirit. It gives us MIND power which is not in animal BRAIN. Yet that MIND power is limited to knowledge of the physical universe. WHY? Because knowledge enters the human mind ONLY through the five physical senses.

But notice that God had not completed the creation of MAN at the creation of Adam and Eve. The physical creation was completed. They had this “human” spirit at their creation. …

HOW has God planned to “bridge the gap” from physical to spiritual composition — to reproduce Himself out of PHYSICAL HUMANS THAT COME FROM THE PHYSICAL GROUND?

First, God put IN the physical MAN a “human” spirit. It is NOT, however, the human spirit that makes the decisions, comes to repentance, or builds the character. As I have emphasized, this spirit does not impart life, cannot see, hear, feel or think. It empowers the PHYSICAL MAN, through his BRAIN, to do these things. But this spirit RECORDS every thought — every bit of knowledge received through the five senses and it records whatever character — good or bad — that is developed in human life.

The human MAN is made literally from CLAY. God is like the master potter forming and shaping a vessel out of clay. But if the clay is too hard, it will not bend into the form and shape he wants. If it is too soft and moist, it lacks firmness to “STAY PUT” where the potter bends it.

Notice in Isaiah 64:8: “But now, O [ETERNAL], thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”

Yet God has given each of us a MIND OF HIS OWN. If one REFUSES to acknowledge God or God’s ways — refuses to repent of the wrong and turn to the right, God cannot take him and create Godly character in him. But the human CLAY must be pliable, must yield willingly. If the human stiffens up and resists, he is like clay that is too dry and stiff. The potter can do nothing with it. It will not give and bend. Also, if he is so lacking in will, purpose, and determination that he won’t “stay put” when God molds him partly into what God wants him to be — too wishy-washy, weak, lacking root of character, he will never endure to the end. He will lose out.

We are, in truth, the WORK OF HIS HANDS. Yet WE ourselves must do our part in this spiritual development. If we lazily neglect Bible study and prayer — or if we let other material interests become more important and we NEGLECT such great salvation, we lose out.

But if we have the strength of character to YIELD, OF OUR OWN WILL to put ourselves in God’s hands, HE will instill within us His SPIRIT and by it His righteousness — His character — open our minds to His spiritual knowledge. We have to WANT IT! We have to work AT IT! We have to PUT IT FIRST, above all else.

It must be GOD’S righteousness, for all of OURS is like filthy rags to Him. He continually instills His knowledge, His righteousness, His character within us — IF we diligently seek it and want it. BUT WE HAVE OUR VERY IMPORTANT PART IN IT. Then all credit goes to GOD.

As we receive the CHARACTER OF GOD through the Holy Spirit of God, more and more God is REPRODUCING HIMSELF IN us.

Finally, in the resurrection, we shall be as God — in a position where we cannot sin, because we ourselves have set it so and have turned FROM sin and have struggled and struggled AGAINST sin and overcome sin.

God’s PURPOSE WILL be accomplished!

Yes, God’s purpose will be accomplished.

But, this time of year, where people observe non-biblical holidays (watch, for example, Did early faithful Christians celebrate Christmas?), they tend to miss what God’s plan is.

And an overview of that plan is laid out in the biblical Holy Days. For some details, check out the free online booklet: Should You Keep God’s Holy Days or Demonic Holidays?

Some items of related interest may include:

The MYSTERY of GOD’s PLAN Why Did God Create Anything? Why did God make you? This free online book helps answers some of the biggest questions that human have.
Is God’s Existence Logical? Is it really logical to believe in God? Yes! Would you like Christian answers to give atheists? This is a free online booklet that deal with improper theories and musings called science related to the origin of the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and evolution. Two animated videos of related interest are also available: Big Bang: Nothing or Creator? and A Lifegiver or Spontaneous Evolution?
What is Your Destiny? Deification? Did the Early Church Teach That Christians Would Become God? What is your ultimate destiny? What does the Bible teach? Is deification only a weird or cultic idea? Are you to rule the universe? Here is a link to the video sermon What is Your Destiny?
Building Character: Going on to Perfection Once you have accepted Jesus, do you need to strive for perfection and build character? A related video sermon is available: Going on to perfection and building character.
What is the Meaning of Life? Who does God say is happy? What is your ultimate destiny? Do you really know? Does God actually have a plan for YOU personally? If you would like to watch videos covering subjects of this article, you can click on the following links: Why YOU? Why Do YOU Suffer? and What is the meaning of your life?
Biblical Keys to Happiness This is an article for those interested in biblical teachings about being happy. A related sermon is available and is titled: 14 Biblical Keys to Happiness.
Should You Keep God’s Holy Days or Demonic Holidays? This is a free pdf booklet explaining what the Bible and history shows about God’s Holy Days and popular holidays. A related sermon is Which Spring Days should Christians observe?