Neuroscience

The Explanatory Gap

Neuroscience correlates brain states with mental states but cannot explain why physical processes produce experience. This is not a gap in current knowledge but a conceptual chasm: how does objective neural activity become subjective experience?

The Divine Algorithm demands radical honesty: we do not know how matter produces consciousness. Every neural correlate discovered deepens rather than solves the mystery. Correlation is not explanation.

• Correlation vs. Causation: Brain scans show what correlates with experience, not how matter produces consciousness. Knowing that V4 activates when you see red doesn't explain why there's something it's like to see red.
• Qualitative Experience: No neural description captures what it's like to see red or feel pain. You could know everything about pain neurons and still not know what pain feels like. The subjective is irreducible.
• First-Person Access: Consciousness is known from the inside; neuroscience studies it from outside. These are different epistemic modes. Third-person science cannot capture first-person experience.
• The Knowledge Argument: Mary the color scientist knows everything physical about color but learns something new when she sees red. Physical knowledge is incomplete. There are facts about experience that physics cannot capture.

Anomalous Phenomena

Certain phenomena challenge simple brain-mind identity. If consciousness is produced by the brain, these cases are deeply puzzling. If the brain is a receiver or interface, they become more intelligible.

• Near-Death Experiences: Vivid, structured experiences during cardiac arrest when the brain shows minimal activity. The AWARE study documented verified perceptions during clinical death. How does a flatlined brain produce rich experience?
• Terminal Lucidity: Dementia patients sometimes regain full clarity hours before death—despite severely damaged brains. If consciousness is produced by neural tissue, this should be impossible.
• Mental Causation: Thoughts cause physical actions—you decide to raise your arm and it rises. How does the immaterial move the material? This is the interaction problem, and it cuts both ways.
• Placebo and Nocebo: Belief changes brain chemistry. Expectation of pain relief activates endogenous opioids. Mind affects matter in measurable ways. This is precisely what theism predicts.