Neural Science: A Century of Progress and the Mysteries that Remain

Clearly, we should be prepared for the possibility that there are aspects of consciousness that will not be solved by the approaches discussed in this review.  Some might believe that all that is scientific about the study of life is illuminated at all levels from the molecular to the behavioral by what we know about DNA.  But others might believe that there are issues about what it means to be a living being that are really not explained by the most detailed account of DNA.  Many issues of awareness and voluntary control are likely to be explained at all levels, from genes to behavior.  This might constitute a theory of consciousness in much the same way as DNA serves as the basis for any scientific analysis of what constitutes life.  Nonetheless, it is at present hard to imagine how the progress discussed above, even if it continues and intensifies, will solve all the issues of the subjective nature of our experience.  We leave it to the readers of Cell and Neuron in the next millennium to determine how much insight about human consciousness will result from the type of work we have discussed here.