Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 106 of 138
Mysterians and the mystery of consciousness
Mysterians think that consciousness is a mystery that cannot be solved by our existing scientific methods; and some mysterians think we will never be able to understand how consciousness could be explained by brain processes. Thomas Nagel5 thinks it might be possible one day to understand how brain causes consciousness but it would require a total revolution in our way of thinking about reality and in our conception of scientific explanation, because given our present apparatus we cannot conceive how subjective, qualitative inner experiences could arise from third-person neuronal phenomena. Colin McGinn,6 an extreme mysterian, thinks it is impossible in principle that human beings should ever come to be able to understand how the brain causes consciousness.