Response- Is it philosophy or science's job to account for consciousness?

Consciousness is a serious puzzle that perplexes many academics from neuroscientists to philosophers to cognitive scientists. I agree with Goff with the idea that we need philosophy In the early stages of consciousness research but I disagree with the conclusion that consciousness will eventually move into a complete science problem. I don’t think there is any scientific research that couldn’t use a philosophical basis and philosophers working on these problems. I just don’t think it’s the right idea to not have many academics from different disciplines work on the problem because we don't have a definite answer and the more people, we have working on the problem of consciousness hopefully the closer we can get to a solution.

While my need for us to answer this problem of consciousness through a philosophical lens is most likely due to the fact that I agree with Phillip Goff on his panpsychism take. Since the problem of consciousness isn't simply an empirical question. And I believe that science tells us what matter does but doesn’t explicitly tell us what matter is. Science keeps us in the light when speaking of the physical state of what matter does but doesn’t tell us the intrinsic nature of matter when in terms of subjective experience. This is to say that science can't understand the phenomenal aspects of consciousness from subject to subject.

Science and philosophy when it comes to big questions need to stop thinking they need to divide when it comes to working on the questions. Especially the consciousness question because we all as academics or enjoyers of science or philosophy want to try to understand the world around us and coming together is going to get us closer than saying one field should work on the problem rather than the other. The divide between science and philosophy needs to end because while science has made tons of progress in the last hundred years id argue that philosophy also makes progress.

I think we also can't rely just on science to answer the problem of consciousness because it is essentially a metaphysical problem as much as it is a scientific problem. This stems from my belief that consciousness pervades nature as is a fundamental aspect of our reality. But consciousness does still have physical testable aspects so this is where science as a whole can come in and assist the philosopher in the study of consciousness. However, leaving a gigantic problem like this one to just one discipline is egotistical since it's one of the biggest mysteries of our time and everyone should be working on the problem of consciousness so we can hopefully get closer to an objective answer.

As always stay curious!