Scientific knowledge is sometimes used to demonstrate that we are just a collection of chemical reactions. When we feel pain it is really just that certain neurons are firing, and the like. The study of physical systems has lead many to conclude that that is all we are. Awareness, Consciousness, experience...what are those? The thought process goes something like this: Consciousness cannot be measured, or at least not as an object in the physical world, and so therefore it is not real. Others might say they can measure consciousness. But they're likely referring to physical correlates to consciousness in a brain, not consciousness itself. Apparently not being able to distinguish the difference between the two.
But doesn't science only exist in our minds? Does it then exist as a bunch of chemical processes there? When we speak of Science, are we speaking of chemical processes inside people's brains? If there were no experience, awareness, whatever you want to call it, would there be any science? Any chemical processes? Any physical laws? Since such constructs only exist in a mind. Perhaps you'll say, those chemical processes would still exist, there would just be no one there to be aware of them. As in, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody's there does it make a sound? Maybe so, but if there was no mind, anywhere, there would be no one in that universe to even ask about physical laws, so how could you even say they were there or not? And what are physical laws with no mind to understand what that even means?
Now then some people, who except that awareness is real and not insignificant, might say that a particular chemical process in my brain might cause me to feel pain. I prefer to say that it's correlated with my feeling pain, since without a mind to understand what chemical processes even are, such a statement would not not even exist. Any concept, including a statement, only exists in a mind. There could be no discussion, no anything, without it. So how then can you say that a chemical process "causes" the mind to sense something?
