rationalskepticism.org

campermon wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote: What can't be done is reducing "self-awareness" to neural function (quantum or otherwise).

Why not?

Because there is no non-circular way to define either "self" or "awareness". "Self-awareness" is exactly the same as "consciousness." It could only be "defined" via a Wittgenstein-busting "private ostensive definition", and that's no use if you want to reduce the thing to matter.

There seems to be some promising ideas outlined here;
'THE NEUROLOGY OF SELF-AWARENESS'
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramacha ... index.html

Ramachandran is a self-declared neutral monist. He doesn't believe consciousness is physical or can be reduced to physical things. He thinks both physical and mental things can be reduced to something else which is neither.