Biology And Phenomenology

Biology (more particularly, neuroscience) might be a topic that is related to consciousness, but only logic and introspection can actually inform one about the nature of consciousness itself.  Only having consciousness and reflecting on it can tell someone what consciousness is actually like.  In other words, even if someone knew the total physical makeup of another creature, which includes the entirety of its neurological activities, they could not know merely from that information 1) if the creature is conscious or 2) what its particular consciousness is like.

For instance, even if an animal could be demonstrated to be conscious and not merely seem to be conscious, how could one know whether or not it possesses something such as free will or self-awareness?  One cannot know that another creature even has consciousness to begin with merely from the observation of its external behaviors or from awareness of its anatomy and physiology.  This is why the study of animal consciousness, as well as the consciousness of any being other than oneself, will never make any ultimate progress as long as human epistemic limitations endure.  I cannot know if other humans, much less animals, are themselves conscious.  It is true by necessity that any other beings with my limitations are also unable to obtain such knowledge.

One can become familiar with the seeming biological workings of another creature to the point where one can establish that there is a distinct, constant correlation between certain neurological events and the appearance of mental events.  Nevertheless, no scientist who has my epistemological limitations can actually say with legitimacy that there is such a thing as observational proof of animal minds or of other human minds.  It is not that biology should be ignored (science is still of great convenience for things like health), but that it can tell me nothing about any inner life that another living being actually experiences.  Another way of articulating this is that it does not follow from the fact that the lights seem to be on that there is actually someone inside the home.

Short of telepathy on the part of other conscious beings, the mind and its contents are only "visible" to their owner: that is, visible to that mind itself.  No one else can peer in without telepathy, but this also means that no non-telepath knows if other minds exist.  This is why I might turn out to be the uncaused cause [1].  There is no evidence to suggest that this is the case, but it is logically possible because there is no conceptual contradiction involved and because it cannot be refuted.  However, there remains a great deal of evidence that other minds exist, albeit nothing that proves anything more than that other beings seem to be conscious.  I do not know even this from biology, though, but from reason.  Science is incapable of illuminating the matter of other minds.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html