Epigraph:

سَنُرِيهِمْ آيَاتِنَا فِي الْآفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ ۗ أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِ بِرَبِّكَ أَنَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٌ

We shall show them Our signs upon the horizons and within themselves till it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Does it not suffice that your Lord is Witness over all things? (Al Quran 41:53)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

“Our experience of consciousness is so intrinsic to who we are, we rarely notice that something mysterious is going on.” ― Annaka Harris

“Let us accept the world is a mystery. Nature is neither solely material nor entirely spiritual. Man, too, is more than flesh and blood.” ― Albert Einstein

“The mystery of consciousness shows there may be a limit to what science alone can achieve.” ― Philip Goff 

“Consciousness is experience itself, and it is therefore easy to miss the profound question staring us in the face in each moment: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious?” ― Annaka Harris 

“Consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe, as pervasive as time and space.” ― David Chalmers

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

“The elemental fact, present in our consciousness every moment of our existence, is: I am life that wills to live, in the midst of life that wills to live.” ― Albert Schweitzer

“Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. A mystery is a phenomenon that people don’t know how to think about—yet.” ― Daniel Dennett

“The hard problem of consciousness is the question of why there is anything it is like to be something, why there is subjective experience at all.” ― David Chalmers

“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force… We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” ― Max Plank

“As the brain-changes are continuous, so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views. Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream.” ― William James

“The thing about lucid dreams is that it’s not like the real world where you are constrained by all sorts of things, including the laws of physics-you can do magic.” ― Paul Davies

“Why do certain configurations of matter cause that matter to light up with awareness?” ― Annaka Harris

“We will never fully understand consciousness until we integrate the subjective and objective aspects of the phenomenon.” ― David Chalmers

Conclusion

If these quotes have inspired a certain mystery and curiosity in your mind, then you are in good company. You just realized what a large body of philosophers, neurologists, and physicists call the hard problem of consciousness.

That in view of some is the hardest problem of all and some think that mystery will never be solved.

I conclude with yet another quote: “The hard problem of consciousness is one of the greatest mysteries in science.” ― David Chalmers