Text 1: Cognitive scientist Park argues that consciousness will eventually yield to scientific explanation. Like life and heredity before it, she contends, consciousness will be reduced to physical mechanisms — neural correlates, integration measures, information patterns — that, once fully described, leave nothing further to explain. The "hard problem" reflects current ignorance, not a permanent barrier.
Text 2: Cognitive scientist Singh accepts that the science of consciousness will advance but argues that the analogy to life and heredity is misleading. Both of those concepts referred from the start to publicly observable functions; consciousness, by contrast, refers essentially to subjective experience. Even a complete physical theory, Singh contends, will leave the question of why any of it is felt unanswered — and that gap is structural, not historical.
Based on the texts, how would Singh (Text 2) most likely respond to Park's analogy with life and heredity?
- Acheck_circle
He would argue that the analogy fails because consciousness, unlike life or heredity, refers essentially to subjective experience.
- B
He would agree that consciousness is no different in kind from life or heredity.
- C
He would propose that life and heredity remain unexplained today.
- D
He would deny that the science of consciousness can advance at all.
Explanation
Singh's central move is to challenge the analogy: consciousness is unlike life/heredity because it refers essentially to subjective experience. C captures this. A reverses; B and D contradict him.