I have extensively studied the subject of psychology, for starters. Second, have you ever been talking to someone when you wanted a particular word, or maybe someone's name, and cannot recall it but then do recall it two hours later.
Where was that knowledge? Clearly in your mind but not available to your conscious mind.
Extensive training in the martial arts teaches one that there is a form of knowledge that operates far too quickly for the conscious mind but is known by the mind nonetheless. What mind possesses this knowledge?
Finally, from whence come dreams?
Here’s something you can know: to say we don’t know the mechanism, the substance or the essence of life is an assertion which is logically consistent with the proposition that life is not reducible to material phenomena.
Your proposition that life is not reducible to material phenomena is not capable of verification, therefore it is irrelevant. You are arguing for the validity of a proposition on the basis of long standing, well known fallacy. You can't prove a negative, friend. That's what I find annoying.
You missed the fact that I wasn’t arguing the proposition that life is not reducible to material phenomena—the point was that to assert we don’t know the substance of life is logically consistent with this proposition.
(by the way, please give extra attention to post # 178)
And surely you see that you can’t have knowledge of the subconscious mind when limited to your criteria “sensory perception/observation/measurement.”
As for the task of proving a negative, atheists face the toughest example. But their faith solves this problem.