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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Objective access to the subjective 
Message-ID: <D0GLGt.Gqr@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <3bd8s0$1q2@pobox.csc.fi> <D0CorF.I4t@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <jqbD0Dx14.156@netcom.com> <D0EMIy.AL6@spss.com>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 21:10:04 GMT
Lines: 35

In article <D0EMIy.AL6@spss.com>, Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
>In article <jqbD0Dx14.156@netcom.com>, Jim Balter <jqb@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Andrzej Pindor <pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>>The problem here is that consciousness is unlike other problems to which we
>>>apply scientific methods. Scientific methods are applied to the world
>>>reaching us through our senses whereas consciousnes is a phenomenon about
>>>which we have knowledge without senses - we _know_ that we are conscious,
>>>without involving sight, hearing, etc. Hence I doubt if scientific method is
>>>suitable to studying consciousness understood this way.
>>
>>It seems to me that the perception of our own thoughts can be thought of as
>>a sixth sense.  Unfortunately, it is as though each of us is sealed in a
>>room.  We can each sense what is in our own room, but not anyone else's room.
>>Additionally, we cannot bring any measuring instruments into the room.
>>This makes the usual methods of science unavailable.
>
>I'm rather surprised that you should hold such a position, after reading
>Hardin.  As recounted in _Color for Philosophers_, color scientists do
>study peoples' subjective impressions (e.g. reports on whether they've seen
>a light or not; whether two color samples match; what primary colors a light
>consists of; what the prototypical example of a particular color term is);
>and they've made progress in linking such judgments to physiological
>facts about the brain.  Why shouldn't such methods eventually be applicable 
>to consciousness or thought as well?

Isn't this what Dennett calls "heterophenomenology" in "Consciousness
Explained"? That is investigating verbal reports of mental events? Surely
this is not the same as investigating the mental events themselves, is it?

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
