CONSCIOUSNESS

1. Philosophy 67
1995). One need not, however, give up entirely on objectivity: the data of subjective experience
may reasonably be constrained by intersubjectivity (Hut & Shepard, 1996; Jack & Roepstorff,
2003; Piccinini, 2003; Thompson, 2001; Zahavi, 2001), which expresses “properties
that are inherent in subjective conscious experience, but in addition are mutually agreed upon
by different subjects” (Hut & Shepard, 1996, p. 317). With this constraint, subjectivity is harnessed
in the quest for intersubjective truth. We therefore may and should consider subjective
experience as primary data for the science of consciousness, and our effort to construct such
a science must include intersubjective data. This approach will eventually become the new
science of consciousness when coupled with investigation of a particular class of experience,
anomalous experiences. This class of experience lies outside of our understanding at present,
hence the labeling as anomalous, and thus provides the most crucial test of theories of
consciousness: can a theory explain what has previously been a mystery? The usefulness of
this approach will be demonstrated using data from two types of anomalous experience: the
near-death experience and after-death communications. Both of these phenomena have been
dismissed by skeptics as hallucinations, wishful thinking or lies, even though both have been
experienced and reported independently by millions of people across human history and the
planet. Examples of each phenomenon will be provided to show that common characteristics
are present in these independent reports, thus providing an intersubjective data set that must
be explained for our understanding of consciousness to progress. P1
55 Is a Science of Consciousness Possible? Limitations, Doubts and
Opportunities William H Kautz (Former Director, Center for
Applied Intuition, and President, Gaia Institute, Tucson, AZ)
Before embarking on the creation of a scientific theory of consciousness we would do well
to check the root assumptions on which all scientific knowledge and scientific methodology
are based. This is not merely a formal precaution, because these assumptions have already
been fundamentally violated by some of this last century’s strongest discoveries in particle
physics, medicine and parapsychology, and to a lesser extent in some of the social sciences.
We also know that some of these assumptions are only doubtfully satisfied for the study of
consciousness in general, and one of them, objectivity, is not satisfied at all. If we cannot find
a way to reformulate or circumvent these assumptions about our world, or to modify our methods
so as to accommodate them as they stand, we are at risk of generating findings that are
misleading, meaningless or downright wrong. This presentation discusses these unresolved
issues and identifies some possible means for resolving them. The principal root assumptions
up for reexamination are objectivity, measurability (positivity) and the aspects of causality
and randomness inherent in reductionism. We present examples of prior studies in science
in which all root assumptions were satisfied but the findings were meaningless, incorrect or
directly challenged their own legitimacy. We then discuss how both the root assumptions and
present-day scientific methodology might need to be changed in order to allow a depth study
of consciousness. The nature of the failures just cited hints that such changes may not be possible
at all, in which case entirely new assumptions and/or a new methodology may have to be
created. We may be forced to turn to “other ways of knowing” than traditional science if we
are ever to generate a foundation of solid, consensual knowledge about what consciousness is
and how it works within the human mind. [300 words] P1
56 We Will Know What We Are Looking For When We Find It Morey Kitzman
(Psychology, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Littleton, CO)
Thus far the field of consciousness research seems to lack any clear sense of what it is
exactly that we researching. We have no consensus to either describe or define consciousness
and a great many question the very idea of consciousness. Operational definitions have
been completely absent. Perhaps the question we should be asking is not what is the nature
of consciousness, but instead why are we in such a state of confusion about something that
should be patently self evident. In other words, I am I, and should not the I of I am know itself.
Should not that which is conscious have some understanding directly of its consciousness?