Can science explain consciousness?

Scientists continue to struggle with defining consciousness, that subjective sense of self and first-person experience that emerges from the physical brain. While researchers can identify brain areas linked to awareness, the "hard problem" remains: explaining how subjective experience arises from neural matter. Current theories like integrated information theory suggest consciousness involves unified, information-rich brain networks that stop communicating when we lose consciousness, though this still can't explain why we experience different sensations the way we do.