What Is Wholeness? The Consciousness View

[摘要] After decades spent ignoring the whole issue of consciousness, recent years have seen a boom, or at least a boomlet, of scientific interest. The vast majority of scientists still aren’t interested in consciousness, and their indifference can be simply explained. When conducting an experiment in the laboratory, the air in the room is irrelevant (unless you are experimenting on air). Likewise, consciousness is just as irrelevant. Like air, it is necessary, but it is beside the point. Air and consciousness are just a given. Ironically, this dismissal actually holds a clue to the mysteries posed by consciousness. Its very nature defies the standard methods of science, which are based on reductionism—a problem is reduced to its smallest logical part, from which an answer is produced from the bottom up. The method is familiar in medical research, which begins its investigations at the level of the gene and works its way up to cells, tissues, organs, systems, and finally the whole body. Wholeness represents the last stage, and thanks to medical specialization, the body as a whole is something the average physician in practice pays little attention to in comparison to his or her particular specialization.

[学科分类] 林业科学