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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Objective access to the subjective 
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References: <3bd8s0$1q2@pobox.csc.fi> <JMC.94Dec3140227@white.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il> <D0CorF.I4t@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <jqbD0Dx14.156@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 19:37:45 GMT
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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?
