Suppose we are studying landforms. We can accumulate a great deal of knowledge about the Rocky Mountains or the Great Rift Valley, knowledge that we can sort into classifications. We will develop, we hope, an increasing understanding over the centuries.

Neuroscientists and psychologists have many insights about human consciousness too. But the situation is very different. The problem is, the insights are not outside the question itself; they are a vital part of it. Without human consciousness, the researchers would not be studying human consciousness.

The difficulty is not that there are few insights available but that that element of the problem is inescapable. It dooms the effort to treat human consciousness as a mere subject of research.

But many researchers do like to write about consciousness and here are two recent contributions to the accessible literature:

A “Psychological Delusion”

At Big Think, psychologist Iris Berent tells us that the idea that consciousness is not purely physical could arise from bias, a “psychological delusion”:

Intuitive dualism is one such psychological bias. It suggests to us that the mind is ethereal, distinct from the body. My research suggests that intuitive dualism arises in humans naturally and spontaneously — it emerges from the two innate systems: One guides our understanding of the physical properties of objects; another helps us “read” the minds of others. So it is not the product of rationally analyzing what exists. It is a psychological delusion that arises from within the human mind itself.

However, intuitive dualism has been shown to give rise to various prejudices, ranging from the denial of human nature to our misguided fascination with neuroscience and the tendency to stigmatize people with psychiatric disorders. Our consciousness intuitions could arise from the same source as these biases. 

“Psychology has a consciousness problem,” January 1, 2025

But her approach skates right by the question of why we are thinking about any such thing at all. If human consciousness were purely physical, it is unlikely that we would be.

An Impossible Problem

At Nautilus, in an adapted excerpt from his 2023 book, Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation, science writer George Musser argued something similar in 2023:

For the past five years or so, I’ve been trying to untangle the cluster of theories that attempt to explain consciousness, traveling the world to interview neuroscientists, philosophers, artificial-intelligence researchers, and physicists—all of whom have something to say on the matter. Most duck the hard problem, either bracketing it until neuroscientists explain brain function more fully or accepting that consciousness has no deeper explanation and must be wired into the base level of reality.

Although I made it a point to maintain an outsider’s view of science in my reporting, staying out of academic debates and finding value in every approach, I find both positions defensible but dispiriting. I cling to the intuition that consciousness must have some scientific explanation that we can achieve. But how? It’s hard to imagine how science could possibly expand its framework to accommodate the redness of red or the awfulness of fingernails on a chalkboard. But there is another option: to suppose that we are misconstruing our experience in some way. We think that it has intrinsic qualities, but maybe on closer inspection it doesn’t. 

“Is the hard problem really so hard?,” October 20, 2023

The difficulty is that if consciousness is immaterial, a scientific explanation must address and include that fact. 

David Chalmers‘s “Hard Problem of Consciousness” is, in fact, impossible if that fact cannot be accepted. But so much research seems aimed at talking around the problem and looking for material solutions because they feel comfortable.

Cross-posted at Mind Matters News.