What is so mysterious about human consciousness?

[Speck Tater]

20. Consciousness is a slippery word to define.

Look at a person sound asleep. We would say this person is not conscious, and yet if the person is dreaming, he definitely IS conscious of his dream while experiencing it. So is this person conscious or unconscious?

If consciousness is defined as reactivity to ones surroundings (the behaviorist approach of observing only what is objectively quantifiable) then the person is unconscious. If consciousness is defined in terms of subjective experience (something that reductionist science does not know how to talk about) then the person is conscious.

Awareness can also be defined as reactivity to the surroundings. Is the thermostat on the wall aware of the temperature of the room? Does it "decide" to turn on the heat? If we make the mistake of anthropomorphizing mechanical processes, we can just as easily, and perhaps even more easily, make the mistake of mechanizing transcendent processes, and of claiming to explain what we have merely named or described, or of thinking that we understand something simply because we have found a clever analogy and stretched it beyond it's legitimate applicability.

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound
source of spirituality." - Carl Sagan