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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Objective access to the subjective 
Message-ID: <jqbD0ExH7.EL5@netcom.com>
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References: <3bd8s0$1q2@pobox.csc.fi> <D0CorF.I4t@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <jqbD0Dx14.156@netcom.com> <D0EMIy.AL6@spss.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 23:34:19 GMT
Lines: 36

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?

Studies of subjective impressions invoke such senses as sight or hearing
in order to perceive the responses.  What I was trying to say is that
we cannot use this sixth sense directly in scientific persuit in the
same way that we use our other senses.  What we study are reports, and
we build a model from that.  But perhaps this isn't that much different
from the rest of science; cloud chamber trails are reports of subatomic
particles, not direct experience of them.  Perhaps I was just momentarily
suckered by the subjective illusion.  I certainly didn't mean to suggest
that mental activity is immune to scientific investigation.
-- 
<J Q B>
