What is the study of consciousness, and why is it important?
Almost all of the scientific study of consciousness that is now ongoing operates within the context of what we might call a “reductionistic” assumption — that consciousness is a secondary, emergent product of biochemical processes taking place in the brain and nervous system of an organism. That is, it has no reality in its own right, and no independence from the biological nexus that is generating it. As the astronomer Carl Sagan put it, from this point of view “the brain secretes consciousness the way the liver secretes bile.” It may be the case, however, that this reductionistic assumption is incorrect. It may be that consciousness is more independently real and more extensive in its functioning than this assumption suggests. If so, it would be important to gain a scientific understanding of this greater independence and efficacy. Among the sciences, only Parapsychology carries out its work with the possibility in mind that the reductionistic assumption may be too narrow. Rather th
