Consciousness is necessarily mysterious

I think it is basically true that "Consciousness is necessarily mysterious" for the reason you stated: we can not observe ourselves objectively. We can't get outside of ourselves to look at ourselves. What we can do is learn how other people's brains work, and then with the proviso that "people are basically all alike" assume that the way everybody else's brain works is the way my brain works.

How much value there is in learning exactly how a mind works, not sure. We need to understand the brain better, but the mind which the brain contains... leave it alone.

It’s also borne out by the research of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield who conducted many experiments with living patients. The brain itself has no sensitivity to pain, so he was able to directly stimulate the brains of subjects whilst they were conscious. Penfield noted that patients were always aware that the sensation, memory, etc., evoked by brain stimulation was done to them, but not by them. Penfield found that patients retained a “third person” perspective on mental events evoked by brain stimulation but there was also always an awareness that was independent of cortical stimulation; they would know when their actions were being caused by Penfield, and not by their own volition.

There’s also a documented issue around the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, namely, that scientists can’t isolate the area of the brain that is responsible for the subjective unity of perception. This is also known as one aspect of the ‘neural binding problem’ i.e. what it is that actually binds all the disparate elements of perception and sensation into a simple unity. It’s a profound philosophical problem for which there is no apparent scientific solution.

In order to have complete knowledge of your own consciousness you have to be able to observe yourself being conscious. How can you observe/perceive yourself?

"[i]It is obvious that in this respect psychology appears to be at a great disadvantage compared with the other general sciences. Although many of these sciences are unable to perform experiments, astronomy in particular, none of them is incapable of making observations.
In truth, psychology would become impossible if there were no way to make up for this defciency. We can make up for it, however, at least to a certain extent, through the observation of earlier mental states in memory. It has often been claimed that this is the best means of attaining knowledge of mental facts, and philosophers of entirely different orientations are in agreement on this point.
Herbart has made explicit reference to it; and John Stuart Mill points out in his essay on Comte that it is possible to study a mental phenomenon by means of memory immediately following its manifestation. “And this is,” he adds, “really the mode in which our best knowledge of intellectual acts is generally acquired. We re?ect on what we have been doing, when the act is past, but when its impression in the memory is still fresh.”
If the attempt to observe the anger which stirs us becomes impossible because the phenomenon disappears, it is clear that an earlier state of excitement can no longer be interfered with in this way. And we really can focus our attention on a past mental phenomenon just as we can upon a present physical phenomenon, and in this way we can, so to speak, observe it. Furthermore, we could say that it is even possible to undertake experimentation on our own mental phenomena in this manner. For we can, by various means, arouse certain mental phenomena in ourselves intentionally, in order to find out whether this or that other phenomenon occurs as a result. We can then contemplate the result of the experiment calmly and attentively in our memory.[/i]"
-Franz Brentano, "Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint", p. 26.

The this is not a pipe meme shows that images/models/reflections/pixels are not the actual thing:

Last time I checked, Magritte wasn't in the business of making memes. That's a painting called "The Treachery of Images", not something whipped up by some schoolkid. Foucault wrote a book about it btw.

Quoting Bitter Crank

We need to understand the brain better, but the mind which the brain contains... leave it alone.

I'll decide that for myself, thanks. It's my own mind anyway so you don't have much say in the matter. :)

Quoting Purple Pond

In order to have complete knowledge of your own consciousness you have to be able to observe yourself being conscious.

The idea of "complete knowledge" of anything seems absurd to me.

Quoting Purple Pond

So let's say that science has advanced so far that they can show detailed brain scans of a you when you are conscious. All they are showing you are images/models/brain-scans of you being conscious not the actual consciousness. The conscious you is beyond the capabilities of science by the very limits of observation.

What you're talking about there is the difference between first-person experience and third-person experience of first-person experience. For example, first-person experience is your conscious experiences; third-person experience of first-person experiences might involve scientists perceiving brain scans or behaviour of your (first-person) conscious experiences. So I agree; I don't think it's possible for first-person experiences to be experienced by others. That's always going to be a scientific limitation.

Quoting Purple Pond

In order to have complete knowledge of your own consciousness you have to be able to observe yourself being conscious. How can you observe/perceive yourself? Perception is outward, from the subject to object. That is to say form subject to another object. .....The conscious you is beyond the capabilities of science by the very limits of observation.

I disagree. I don't think consciousness is mysterious. Based on my own experience, perception is not outward. I can experience my own mental states, including consciousness, without standing outside myself - without words or concepts. I can't say I always do this, but sometimes. Consciousness doesn't feel mysterious to me.

I went looking for a quote from Alan Watts I remember, but I couldn't find it. To paraphrase - The experience of mystery is the search for something inside us we have hidden from ourselves.

I'd suggest that consciousness remains scientifically mysterious in that the physicalist explanation for it as being an epiphenomenon of brain activity is a work in progress, without a definitive result. But even with an idealist interpretation positing consciousness as the ontological primitive, it may remain a noumenal mystery, as per Kant, insofar as the 'thing' in itself can't be known other than as its phenomenal aspects. Either way though, our experiential awareness is surely all we can know -- albeit some spiritual adepts, in deep states of samadhi, report a state empty of phenomena as being a singular awareness of being 'pure' Awareness, or Beingness, or Knowingness, or some such elusive word for it.

Reply to Purple Pond What you say goes against basic philosophy, the unexamined life is not worth living, and yet there is truth in what you say, a knife can't cut itself.

Perhaps somewhere between the two lies the answer to your question.

Consciousness isn't a unity. There are many conscious beings (humans for sure and perhaps some animals). We can bring that to bear on the conundrum you mention - it's difficult for the subject to become the object - by studying each other. Surely we can learn something if not everything.

Quoting TheMadFool

Consciousness isn't a unity.

If I relay that idea to your eyes, can I trust them to pass it on to your brain?

Quoting Wayfarer

If I relay that idea to your eyes, can I trust them to pass it on to your brain?

It does seem that consciousness, at least the stuff that's happening in it, is like jigsaw pieces fitting together - a unity of experience if I may say so. We understand each other, for the most part, and that again indicates a unity in shared experience. The mind fits, or at least tries to, the pieces of the puzzle together and unifies experience.

Quoting TheMadFool

It does seem that consciousness, at least the stuff that's happening in it, is like jigsaw pieces fitting together - a unity of experience if I may say so. We understand each other, for the most part, and that again indicates a unity in shared experience. The mind fits, or at least tries to, the pieces of the puzzle together and unifies experience.

There is an interesting essay by Stephen J. Gould called "Mozart and Modularity." Gould discusses a journal article written when Mozart was a boy. Even then he was a prodigy. The journal article raised the question as to how such a brilliant musician could be so normal in other aspects of his life. Gould goes on to discuss the idea of the mental modularity - how our minds are made up of numerous capabilities and properties that are tied up into an integral whole.

I couldn't find the Gould article online. It's in "Eight Little Piggies." He's a wonderful writer.

Quoting T Clark

Gould goes on to discuss the idea of the mental modularity - how our minds are made up of numerous capabilities and properties that are tied up into an integral whole.

Reply to Wayfarer

I have my doubts about this ''unity''. Our world is choc-a-bloc with contradictions. Philosophy itself, the pinnacle of human minds, is full of thesis-antithesis. Isn't that multiplicity instead of unity?

Even at an individual level we all have our personal contradictions, assuming of course that such are perversions of reality.