Falsification of Scientific Theories of Consciousness

[Jim Cross]

The hard science approach is a valid but extremely limited epistemology, and consciousness just happens to be one of the areas which is fundamentally outside of it’s scope.

If it is outside its scope, that would make any neuroscientific evidence or research irrelevant. So all the arguments that BK has made over brain activity and psychedelics, in fact that entire line of argument in support of idealism, is meaningless. Probably most of parapsychology would also be in the same state. If science can't study consciousness, then it would certainly be beyond the scope of science to study any psi powers or abilities that arise from consciousness.

Essentially you are left with metaphysics or religious belief.

Either that you are arguing for something other than "hard" science, some kind of "soft" science that doesn't really need to look at evidence at all because it already knows a priori what is. But that would be the same as metaphysics or religious belief.

[AshvinP]

There is no reason to assume that. It is only when we self-impose a materialist or dualist framework does there arise some fundamental limit to what can be empirically and rigorously studied. Goethe was a great example of someone who began to investigate the dynamics of consciousness in relation to the phenomenal world and that was centuries ago. Just think where we would be if his method of scientific investigation had become the gold standard over that of Newton, Descartes, etc. and Kant. Steiner presents elaborations in his book on Goethean Science. Here is an excerpt which draws conclusions and relates them to Goethe's color theory, but it is best to visit the link and read through that entire chapter at least:

Yes fair point, but you’re crossing an interesting boundary here, you could call it the boundary between ‘hard science’ and ‘soft science’. The hard sciences in theory require a type of objectivity that does seem difficult to apply to questions on the nature of consciousness. The questions around the behaviour of consciousness are slightly different, but even then I would still argue that it’s still essentially a ‘black box’ scenario in standard scientific terms (unless you make physicalist assumptions about the nature of consciousness).

A simple heuristic I try to follow - if a perspective is setting up a dichotomy of 'rules' or 'laws' for one set of phenomenon vs. another set, then we are entering philosophical dualist territory and need to reorient back to monism. In fact, the only reason a question about the "nature of consciousness" arises in contrast to the function-purpose of consciousness is because of the Cartesian and Kantian divides. They have made us obsessed with "essences" as some sort of abstract detached property of 'things' in a realm beyond experience, rather than the pragmatic and phenomenological approach which only admits data from the human experience.

The kind of "objectivity" you are referring to may have been somewhat necessary to take us this far in science-technology (but, again, we do have outliers like Goethe), but now it's well past time to move forwards in the 'aperspectival' structure of consciousness (Gebser) where subject-object divisions are restored into Unity and it is very likely science will play a large role in such a restoration. I really believe Hoffman is just the first of many who will stop taking the divides for granted and dare to push the limits of what scientific inquiry can do, closing the gap between 'hard science' and spirituality. There is nothing fundamentally keeping them apart, like Goethe and Steiner show.

[Simon Adams]

A simple heuristic I try to follow - if a perspective is setting up a dichotomy of 'rules' or 'laws' for one set of phenomenon vs. another set, then we are entering philosophical dualist territory and need to reorient back to monism. In fact, the only reason a question about the "nature of consciousness" arises in contrast to the function-purpose of consciousness is because of the Cartesian and Kantian divides. They have made us obsessed with "essences" as some sort of abstract detached property of 'things' in a realm beyond experience, rather than the pragmatic and phenomenological approach which only admits data from the human experience.

The kind of "objectivity" you are referring to may have been somewhat necessary to take us this far in science-technology (but, again, we do have outliers like Goethe), but now it's well past time to move forwards in the 'aperspectival' structure of consciousness (Gebser) where subject-object divisions are restored into Unity and it is very likely science will play a large role in such a restoration. I really believe Hoffman is just the first of many who will stop taking the divides for granted and dare to push the limits of what scientific inquiry can do, closing the gap between 'hard science' and spirituality. There is nothing fundamentally keeping them apart, like Goethe and Steiner show.

I think I get what you are saying, but it’s difficult to see how science would work in that case as a process ... which is essentially what science is. The model that Hoffman is working on is indeed describing something more like a spiritual reality than you typically expect from a scientific theory. Nonetheless Hoffman is very much planning to use the normal scientific process. In other words he will not rely purely on “data from the human experience” to justify his theory as valid.

We know that the contents of the mind are inherently unreliable, which is why the scientific process exists in the form it does. What is the way you would expect theories to be validated in this brave new world?

[AshvinP]

A simple heuristic I try to follow - if a perspective is setting up a dichotomy of 'rules' or 'laws' for one set of phenomenon vs. another set, then we are entering philosophical dualist territory and need to reorient back to monism. In fact, the only reason a question about the "nature of consciousness" arises in contrast to the function-purpose of consciousness is because of the Cartesian and Kantian divides. They have made us obsessed with "essences" as some sort of abstract detached property of 'things' in a realm beyond experience, rather than the pragmatic and phenomenological approach which only admits data from the human experience.

The kind of "objectivity" you are referring to may have been somewhat necessary to take us this far in science-technology (but, again, we do have outliers like Goethe), but now it's well past time to move forwards in the 'aperspectival' structure of consciousness (Gebser) where subject-object divisions are restored into Unity and it is very likely science will play a large role in such a restoration. I really believe Hoffman is just the first of many who will stop taking the divides for granted and dare to push the limits of what scientific inquiry can do, closing the gap between 'hard science' and spirituality. There is nothing fundamentally keeping them apart, like Goethe and Steiner show.

I think I get what you are saying, but it’s difficult to see how science would work in that case as a process ... which is essentially what science is. The model that Hoffman is working on is indeed describing something more like a spiritual reality than you typically expect from a scientific theory. Nonetheless Hoffman is very much planning to use the normal scientific process. In other words he will not rely purely on “data from the human experience” to justify his theory as valid.

We know that the contents of the mind are inherently unreliable, which is why the scientific process exists in the form it does. What is the way you would expect theories to be validated in this brave new world?

It's not a different method of doing science, but rather the recovery of method which is not bogged down by unnecessary materialist-dualist assumptions. It does not try to separate the study of 'matter' from consciousness. Hoffman references "psychophysics" often, which is the study of the relationship between percepts and subjective conscious experiences. No doubt that along with rigorous cognitive science and psychology can be brought to bear on various scientific inquiries. Ultimately science should always be about exploring how we, as humans, relate to the phenomenal world through sound empirical analysis and testing of models. Again, Goethe is a great example of how this non-dualist method can be employed in various fields. I cannot recommend reading Steiner's book Goethean Science enough. And, if we take possibilities of higher cognition seriously, we are only just beginning to explore the empirical data which can be studied. Another relevant excerpt may help:

True science, in the higher sense of the word, has to do only with ideal objects; it can only be idealism. For, it has its ultimate foundation in needs that stem from the human spirit. Nature awakens questions in us, problems that strive for solution. But nature cannot itself provide this solution. Through our capacity for knowledge a higher world confronts nature; and this fact creates higher demands. For a being who did not possess this higher nature, these problems would simply not arise. These questions can therefore also not receive an answer from any authority other than precisely this higher nature. Scientific questions are therefore essentially a matter that the human spirit has to settle with itself. They do not lead the human spirit out of its element. The realm, however, in which the human spirit lives and weaves as though within its primally own, is the idea, is the world of thoughts. To solve thought-questions with thought-answers is the scientific activity in the highest sense of the word. And all other scientific procedures are there, ultimately, only in order to serve this highest purpose. Take scientific observation, for example. It is supposed to lead us to knowledge of a law of nature. The law itself is purely ideal. The need to find a lawfulness holding sway behind the phenomena already stems from the human spirit. An unspiritual being would not have this need. Now let us proceed to the observation! What do we actually want to achieve by it? In response to the question created in our spirit, is something supposed to be provided from outside, by sense observation, that could be the answer to that question? Never. For why should we feel ourselves more satisfied by a second observation than by the first? If the human spirit were satisfied at all by an observed object, then it would have to be satisfied right away by the first. But the actual question is not at all one about any second observation, but rather about the ideal foundation of the observations. What does this observation admit as an ideal explanation; how must I think it so that it appears possible to me? Those are the questions that come to us with respect to the sense world. I must seek, out of the depths of my spirit itself, what I lack when confronted by the sense world. If I cannot create for myself the higher nature for which my spirit strives when confronted by sense-perceptible nature, then no power in the external world will create it for me. The results of science therefore can come only from the human spirit; thus they can only be ideas. No objections can be raised against this necessary reflection. The ideal character of all science, however, is established thereby.

[Eugene I]

It's not a different method of doing science, but rather the recovery of method which is not bogged down by unnecessary materialist-dualist assumptions. It does not try to separate the study of 'matter' from consciousness. Hoffman references "psychophysics" often, which is the study of the relationship between percepts and subjective conscious experiences. No doubt that along with rigorous cognitive science and psychology can be brought to bear on various scientific inquiries. Ultimately science should always be about exploring how we, as humans, relate to the phenomenal world through sound empirical analysis and testing of models. Again, Goethe is a great example of how this non-dualist method can be employed in various fields.

That seems to be the direction the science is going, but Simon's question is still relevant, because once we include consciousness into the area of science, we run into the problems of the truthfulness criteria. In the traditional natural science the verifiability and falsifiability were used as the truthfulness criteria. And this is what the paper is about: how do we deal with the fact that the criteria of verifiability/falsifiability do not apply anymore to the studies of conscious experiences? Any science needs certain practical criteria and methodologies to distinguish between more and less "truthful" or "accurate" scientific models, otherwise we can develop an enormous amount of "sounding true" models with no way to tell which one of them has any actual relevance to reality. And, in the absence of the criteria of verifiability/falsifiability in the area of consciousness studies, what other truthfulness criteria can we use?

Falsifiability is a very strong criterium, but I would argue that even verifiability (which is a "weaker version" of falsifiability) still does not apply to consciousness studies when the facts of conscious experiences are included. For example, let's say I developed a theory of consciousness that states that dolphins, when they look at a "black" object, actually experience a quale of "whiteness". How would such theory be verified or falsified by any experimental data? It is just not possible.

[Jim Cross]

Falsifiability is a very strong criterium, but I would argue that even verifiability (which is a "weaker version" of falsifiability) still does not apply to consciousness studies when the facts of conscious experiences are included. For example, let's say I developed a theory of consciousness that states that dolphins, when they look at a "black" object, actually experience a quale of "whiteness". How would such theory be verified or falsified by any experimental data? It is just not possible.

The question would be whether science needs to answer that question.

Compare to this ingenious experiment to illustrate how much you can accomplish. (BTW, the researchers claims your blue may be my red).

https://www.livescience.com/21275-color ... tists.html

The researchers were able to modify some of the green light cones in the eyes of male squirrel monkeys so they would be sensitive to red. The monkeys which couldn’t previously distinguish red dots in an image could distinguish them after the modification to the eyes. The processes that enabled color vision in the monkey brain didn’t need modification to be able to learn a new color.

Or this study:

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/25/scie ... rowth.html

Mriganka Sur rewired new-born ferret brains so that the visual input went to where auditory input normally is processed. The result was the part of the brain thought to be only able to process auditory input developed fully functional visual processing capability.

The point is that we can research a lot about qualia even though we can't tell what another person or organism is actually seeing.

[AshvinP]

It's not a different method of doing science, but rather the recovery of method which is not bogged down by unnecessary materialist-dualist assumptions. It does not try to separate the study of 'matter' from consciousness. Hoffman references "psychophysics" often, which is the study of the relationship between percepts and subjective conscious experiences. No doubt that along with rigorous cognitive science and psychology can be brought to bear on various scientific inquiries. Ultimately science should always be about exploring how we, as humans, relate to the phenomenal world through sound empirical analysis and testing of models. Again, Goethe is a great example of how this non-dualist method can be employed in various fields.

That seems to be the direction the science is going, but Simon's question is still relevant, because once we include consciousness into the area of science, we run into the problems of the truthfulness criteria. In the traditional natural science the verifiability and falsifiability were used as the truthfulness criteria. And this is what the paper is about: how do we deal with the fact that the criteria of verifiability/falsifiability do not apply anymore to the studies of conscious experiences? Any science needs certain practical criteria and methodologies to distinguish between more and less "truthful" or "accurate" scientific models, otherwise we can develop an enormous amount of "sounding true" models with no way to tell which one of them has any actual relevance to reality. And, in the absence of the criteria of verifiability/falsifiability in the area of consciousness studies, what other truthfulness criteria can we use?

Falsifiability is a very strong criterium, but I would argue that even verifiability (which is a "weaker version" of falsifiability) still does not apply to consciousness studies when the facts of conscious experiences are included. For example, let's say I developed a theory of consciousness that states that dolphins, when they look at a "black" object, actually experience a quale of "whiteness". How would such theory be verified or falsified by any experimental data? It is just not possible.

I really don't get why verifiability/falsifiability is fundamentally absent from studies of consciousness, unless we are starting from some kind of materialist-dualist framework. Under idealism, the world of 'physical' appearances is also conscious activity. By studying nature and deriving its laws, we have already gained some insight into certain forms of conscious activity, even thought most do not realize it yet.

[Eugene I]

The point is that we can research a lot about qualia even though we can't tell what another person or organism is actually seeing.

That is true, so if science only limits itself to the studies of causal relations of conscious phenomena, but not how they actually experienced form the subjective perspective, such verifiability problems would not no apply. But that means that the studies of the actual qualitative content of the subjective experiences will remain a "tabu-land" for the science of consciousness.

[Eugene I]

I really don't get why verifiability/falsifiability is fundamentally absent from studies of consciousness, unless we are starting from some kind of materialist-dualist framework. Under idealism, the world of 'physical' appearances is also conscious activity. By studying nature and deriving its laws, we have already gained some insight into certain forms of conscious activity, even thought most do not realize it yet.

See my answer to Jim. Verifiability/falsifiability are not fundamentally absent from any studies of consciousness, and there is still a lot that can be studied using the traditional scientific method with its verifiability/falsifiability criteria. But they become not applicable whenever we try to include the qualia of subjective experiences into the studies.

[AshvinP]

I really don't get why verifiability/falsifiability is fundamentally absent from studies of consciousness, unless we are starting from some kind of materialist-dualist framework. Under idealism, the world of 'physical' appearances is also conscious activity. By studying nature and deriving its laws, we have already gained some insight into certain forms of conscious activity, even thought most do not realize it yet.

See my answer to Jim. Verifiability/falsifiability are not fundamentally absent from any studies of consciousness, and there is still a lot that can be studied using the traditional scientific method with its verifiability/falsifiability criteria. But they become not applicable whenever we try to include the qualia of subjective experiences into the studies.