Besides contention in the realm of Quantum Mechanics and Astrophysics, many studies in Neuroscience too have attempted explaining this phenomena. Here, I am going to regurgitate Dan Dennett. Any time someone talks about aatma, consciousness, et al, I like to do this, although it is a futile attempt. And whenever I do this, I feel the same cringe you and I had watching the famous scene at Bow and Arrow pub (used to be at Mass Ave) in Good Will Hunting where Will splendidly says one of the noted lines Matt Damon has ever spoken on screen, “You got that from Vickers, 'Work in Essex County,' page 98, right? Yeah, I read that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter?” (1). That's why citing books and philosophers alluding to my point makes me feel the same way character Clark would've felt (although, I don't have a degree).

OK, so Dan says, “The idea that you could somehow boil mind, the spirit, down to brain activity is just deeply repugnant to many people. People want their minds to be beyond all measures. The idea that their minds are boringly finite is not attractive. And so people want to believe that there is more and more and more in their mind than any science can ever tell them. One of the problems of explaining consciousness is that people think they are conscious of lot more than they actually are conscious of. So one of the first thing that you have to do before doing a good theory of consciousness is you have to beat consciousness back down to size. You have to get a proper account of what the phenomenon is.

He continues, “One of my favorite artifacts is the British Seagull outboard motor which is dead simple and their motto is 'what isn't there can't break', much the same could be said about consciousness. What isn't there doesn't have to be explained. It's just not there” (2).

He argues that the very chutzpa of somebody thinking that one can explain consciousness is just out of the question. He provides an analogy of making a rational argument, say on consciousness, where the contention is to have a conclusion so powerful that it knocks out the opponent. But in fact that doesn't change people's mind at all. Its very hard to change peoples mind about something like consciousness. And the reason for that is that everybody is an expert on consciousness. On every other fields of study you might have a strongly held opinion, say on vaccination or climate change, but you don't consider yourself an expert. Unfortunately when it comes to consciousness, you're an expert (3).

Science of brain is an evolving field. All this assumptions, tirade, claims and counter claims behind arguments on aatma and consciousness would make more sense if discussed on the premise of science. A similar pointer made by Prof Susan Greenfield where she concedes that we should assume that any 'scientific' explanation of consciousness must also include its quintessential feature: subjectivity (4).

Bottom line, it seems 'consciousness' is a swampland for scientific argument where threaders and trolls can agree to disagree.