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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Why scientists popularize premature speculations?
Message-ID: <jqbD0Dx14.156@netcom.com>
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References: <3bd8s0$1q2@pobox.csc.fi> <MATT.94Nov30113507@physics10.berkeley.edu> <JMC.94Dec3140227@white.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il> <D0CorF.I4t@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 10:27:04 GMT
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In article <D0CorF.I4t@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>,
Andrzej Pindor <pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>In article <JMC.94Dec3140227@white.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il>,
>McCarthy John <jmc@white.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il> wrote:
>>I would have regarded Crick's hypothesis - that consciousness is to be
>>investigated by the same scientific methods as are applied to every
>>other question - as not astonishing.  He writes, with some
>>justification, that consciousness is regarded by many (perhaps most)
>>people including scientists as not susceptible to ordinary scientific
>>investigation.  I can imagine that the books was written as a
>>straightforward popularization of Crick's ideas about consciousness
>>and that the publisher got him to put a little hype in about applying
>>ordinary scientific methods being astonishing.
>>
>>Well perhaps making the ideas available to people with an interest
>>requires making it attractive to people who will use it mainly as a
>>decoration.  I guess that considering it as decorative also applies
>>to the editors of book review sections of newspapers and magazines.
>>
>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.
-- 
<J Q B>
