<1>
Whatever the goal of this article, the Introduction, whether intended or not, makes a strong case for the neuroscience-path as certainly (at least thus far) the most fruitful approach to a scientific study (effort to understand how things happen) of consciousness.

<2>
Section [2], whether intended or not, makes the reader answer with a resounding 'no' to the question posed as the title of the article.

<3>
[3] says essentially what I have stated under <2>.

<4>
[4] promised to make a case for 'Perhaps yes' as an answer to the question.

<5>
Re.[5]: I disagree with the characterization of Newtonian science as 'shaped by common sense.' Medieval/ancient science rested on common sense. Newtonian Galilean science is what revealed to us that the world is not as it seems to common sense and everyday experience. Anybody who has taught a course in Physics-1 will know how difficult it is to make students learn that force is not the CAUSE of MOTION or that MOMENTUM is CONSERVED in collisions. Relativity and quantum theory do not tell us that the pictures of space and time and matter provided by Newton-Galileo are 'grossly misleading,' but that they are approximate and very adequate for many practical purposes. It is the 'common-sense' world picture that is misleading, not classical physics. This must be emphasized in this age of post-modernism anti-Cartesianism, and of eloquent calls to a return-to-medieval-mumbo-jumbo.

<6> The most significant statement in this section [5]: 'If you dont stick to mathematics... it is easy to get swept off into ever more tenuous realms of vague generality or wishful thinking.' I would say, 'if you dont adhere to the laboriously erected methodology of classical physics (science), it is easy to get swept off.....'

<7>
Section [6] comes to the heart of the matter: the recognition that in discussions on consciousness we need to recognize what I have called the transrational dimensions of brain activity. Rationality is concerned with reason, logical consistency, empirical proof, etc. Transrationality involves meaningful pure experiences, and has little to do with rationality: aesthetics, ethics, religious experience, love, mysticism etc. belong to the transrational category. What is called 'the ontic realm' vaguely corresponds to this. However, unlike what is claimed for the ontic, our knowledge of the transrational can be very complete, indeed even more so than our knowledge of the rational aspects of the world, if only because it is based on intense personal experience. I am not so sure that quantum theory has successfully described transitions between the two realms (as claimed by some) except in a metaphorical way.

<8>
In [7] neuroscience is summarily dismissed here as 'no more than a sub-system of a larger realm.' Is this a hypothesis or a well-established fact? Yes, if we may start with this hypothesis, we may explore aspects of the 'larger set' through quantum physics, meditation, Buddhism, or whatever else. But if we start with the hypothesis that the 'the larger set' is merely a consequence of complex neural chemistry, neuroscientists may not be on the wrong track, after all. My own hunch is that quantum physics and neuroscience may some day merge exactly as quantum physics and cosmology have done. But for this to happen, we need people who explore both fields in extenso rather than imagine that one rather than the other is the right way to take.

<9>
[8]: Meaning (and the transrational more generally) may well be complementary (in the Bohr sense) to the logical and the empirical. Just as when we examine the sounds and curves of the individual letters forming a word, its meaning gets lost, by examining and understanding neurons and their channels, we may never be able to grasp the transrational dimensions that emerge from it all. In this sense consciousness may well be regarded as the arch that spans both the rational and the transrational.

<10>
[9]: I agree with the thrust of this section, but I do not subscribe to the either/or approach implied here. Rather, I believe that both hard-core neuroscientists on the one hand, and foundations-oriented quantum physicists on the others will find common meeting ground by exploring deeper and deeper in their respective domains, even if their researches (now) are not as well planned for this goal as the tunnel builders from France and England across the English Channel. They will be able to throw much light, but not completely account for everything, if only because the transrational belongs to a different level of reality. Just as no amount of singing and loving can reveal that planets move in elliptical orbits or that the strong force is responsible for the stability of the atomic nucleus, no mathematical equation, thermodynamics, sodium channels or field theory can reveal how beauty emerges in a Shakespearean sonnet , joy from Beethovens Ninth, or ecstasy from devotion to Lord Krishna.

<11>
[10]: Here the author gives the reader the impression that the phenomenon of telepathy has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, and there is the usual complaint against 'organized bands of skeptics, such as those belonging to CSICOP.' I am not so sure that 'people still often assert, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that claims for the occurrence of such correlations (as establish thought transfer) are always due to chance, fraud, or failure to eliminate subtle causal relationships.' In fact, the opposite is true. Any random sampling in any society will have a majority of 'people' who believe, rather than disbelieve, in telepathy, clairvoyance, and astrology. If anything, their number (even respectable scientists) has been steadily increasing. The crucial point in rational science is not how many believe in what, but on what basis the belief is held, what one can do with their believe, and to what extent it conforms to certain standards of proof.

<12>
[13]: 'There are of course a vast range of other paranormal phenomena from various forms of clairvoyance....' Perhaps. Then, it is the responsibility of those scientists who have observed and verified these, to convince fellow scientists and explain these, irrespective of whether the investigators have to constantly 'fend off slurs or outright attacks on their integrity and judgment.' That is what the scientific enterprise is all about. But I also believe the general public climate is in fact in their favor, and it should not be too long before the band of skeptics are silenced into accepting the existence of such phenomena on the basis of whatever evidence convinces the majority.

<13>
[14]: I sympathize with the optimism implicit in the conclusion that newer insights on the nature of consciousness may very likely emerge from further elaboration of quantum physics. But my gut feeling is that there are aspects of the transrational which will for ever be beyond the grasp of the mathematical/logical/empirical, be it quantum mechanics, or neuroscience.

Varadaraja V. Raman

[V.V. Raman is Professor of Physics,
Rochester Institute of Technology,
Rochester, N.Y., U.S.A.
e-mail <vvrsp@rit.edu>]