I do wonder if Science will ever be able to adequately identify, define and understand Consciousness and a "theory of everything" any more than one can with any fullness explain beauty or a symbol or any system of wholes..or ourselves. Perhaps it is impossible because we can never become objective due to our place within (rather than outside) of this whole. It strikes me that it's like the 4 blind men describing the elephant. All are valid, but incomplete.
Excerpt from articl:
Beyond the mystics
Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University, believes that if a "theory of everything" is ever developed in physics to explain all the known phenomena in the universe, it should at least partially account for consciousness.
Penrose also believes that quantum mechanics, the rules governing the physical world at the subatomic level, might play an important role in consciousness.
It wasn't that long ago that the study of consciousness was considered to be too abstract, too subjective or too difficult to study scientifically. But in recent years, it has emerged as one of the hottest new fields in biology, similar to string theory in physics or the search for extraterrestrial life in astronomy.
No longer the sole purview of philosophers and mystics, consciousness is now attracting the attention of scientists from across a variety of different fields, each, it seems, with their own theories about what consciousness is and how it arises from the brain.
In many religions, consciousness is closely tied to the ancient notion of the soul, the idea that in each of us, there exists an immaterial essence that survives death and perhaps even predates birth. It was believed that the soul was what allowed us to think and feel, remember and reason.
Our personality, our individuality and our humanity were all believed to originate from the soul.
Nowadays, these things are generally attributed to physical processes in the brain, but exactly how chemical and electrical signals between trillions of brain cells called neurons are transformed into thoughts, emotions and a sense of self is still unknown...cont'd
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050808_human_consciousness.html_________________________________________________________________
Insights Into Consciousness:
http://www.geocities.com/player2000gi/consciousness.htm_________________________________________________________________
Dane Rudhyar's Philosophy of Operative Wholeness:
http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/pow_1.shtml