Comment by jdietrich

Nobody knows how general anaesthetics work. It's a stone cold mystery. Solving that mystery might lead to a new generation of anaesthetic agents or some other useful medical technology, but nobody is particularly perturbed by our ignorance; a practical knowledge of how to safely and reliably induce anaesthesia is immeasurably more valuable than a theoretical understanding.

Science might aspire to rationality, but reality is Bayesian.