IN THE LETTER “NEUROSCIENCE AND THE
soul” (27 February, p. 1168), M. J. Farah and
N. Murphy state that eventually neuroscience
and the material system it describes may be
able to explain all facets of being human. This
idea strikes me as a somewhat naïve and simple
faith in scientific progress rather than an
accurate assessment of current thinking on
this issue. Some years ago, the philosopher
David Chalmers referred to the problem of
consciousness (how physical processes in the
brain give rise to subjective experience) as the
“hard problem” (1). We are no closer to knowing
or understanding how this happens today,
so the problem remains hard and should be
acknowledged as hard. In the absence of such
understanding, personal opinions and beliefs
about this question should not be presented as
genuine knowledge.
Haha, the guy who wrote this (it's a letter to
Science) is on my dissertation committee. Apparently he is a fan of Chalmer's as well. I definitely agree with the last line.
