Consciousness, falsification and epistemic constraints
Schedule
Saturday, December 12, 2020
00:00 UTC
Johannes Kleiner
Dr
Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy
Host: Consciousness Club Tokyo
Recording
Open recording
Event Information
Recording
Available
Host
Consciousness Club Tokyo
Duration
70 minutes
Abstract
Consciousness is a phenomenon unlike any other studied in natural science. Yet when building theories and designing experiments, we often proceed as if this were not the case. In this talk, I present two recent investigations of mine which explore the implications of consciousness' unique epistemic context for scientific theory building and experimental design. The first investigation is concerned with falsifications of theories of consciousness and identifies a rather deep problem in the usual scheme of testing theories. The second is an axiomatization and subsequent formalization of some of consciousness' more problematic epistemic features that allows to precisely quantify where the usual scientific methodology ceases to be applicable. For both cases, I indicate ways to resolve the problem.
Topics
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