I suspect, however, that that view of the situation misconstrues how thoughtful scientists select the problems they will investigate. I think not. The most he can hope for is the kindly contempt earned by the Utopian politician. If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.
Good scientists study the most important problems they think they can solve.
1.3 A consensus that consciousness, in its full complexity, is not yet a soluble problem does not, however, mean that scientists treat it with benign neglect. Providing a new definition for a familiar word is a hazardous undertaking, the more so when a multifaceted concept like consciousness is involved. As I pause between penning one sentence and the next, and let my mind wander, I can selectively pay attention to the ticking of a clock or to the bleating of sheep in the nearby field, to the books I see on the desk or to the fluttering leaves on the tree outside the window. And so psychologists and neurophysiologists will, I think, continue for some time yet to chip away at the edges of the consciousness problem. It may eventually vanish like a mirage, representing nothing more than the reification of our present state of ignorance about how brains work.