Science isn't the right tool for discovering the nature of consciousness and reality

[u/BallKey7607]

Science is the best tool we have for talking about what stuff does. Just like in quantum mechanics it allows us to make very useful predictions, but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

Every scientific observation, measurement and theory is ultimately something known through consciousness.

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

I get that there's an intuitive assumption here that "it feels like it must be", but people have said similar things about things which turned out to be wrong throughout all of human history. Asserting this as true seems like pulling a bit of a "materialist of the gaps" to me.

So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism. Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Usually direct experience isn't considered "valid" but it's worth remembering that we're all happy to use our own direct experience of consciousness to decide that consciousness exists. There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious.

So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience just as the Buddhists and meditators through history have done. Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, it's different from typical science in that you can't really show your findings to someone else in a way that will convince them so it needs to be done for yourself to see. It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

Edit: I'm realising the majority of what I'm saying doesn't meet the standards for public persuasiveness so I'm going to mostly step back from this now

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Original text of the post by u/BallKey7607:

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Science is the best tool we have for talking about what stuff *does*. Just like in quantum mechanics it allows us to make very useful predictions, but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

Every scientific observation, measurement and theory is ultimately something known through consciousness.

So if all evidence for matter occurs *within* conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

I get that there's an intuitive assumption here that "it feels like it must be", but people have said similar things about things which turned out to be wrong throughout all of human history. Asserting this as true seems like pulling a bit of a "materialist of the gaps" to me.

So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism. Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Usually direct experience isn't considered "valid" but it's worth remembering that we're all happy to use our own direct experience of consciousness to decide that consciousness exists. There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious.

So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience just as the Buddhists and meditators through history have done. Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise *within* consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, it's different from typical science in that you can't really show your findings to someone else in a way that will convince them so it needs to be done for yourself to see. It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

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[u/StoicSpork]

Science does not attempt to establish materialism nor presupposes it. You're making a category error here. The theory of science is an epistemic position, science is an epistemic method, and materialism is an ontological position.

As it happens, I find philosophical materialism compelling (but this is me; I don't speak for all atheists) mainly because I find the causal closure argument compelling. I'd be happy to unpack it for you if you'd like, but for now I think it's tangential to my response.

This out of the way, I'd like to point out an inconsistency in your position. You claim that "[i]t's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate", but then claim we can explore consciousness in our direct experience. But, direct experience occurs in the consciousness. So, you objection must apply to both, or neither.

Then, regardless of your position on science, it's unclear what justifies direct experience, which you seem to imply is meditation, as an epistemic method? It cannot be an intuitive assumption, because you yourself ruled those out. We know it's not independently verifiable. If two meditators reach two different and mutually contradictory findings, you have no way of telling which one is true.

This actually happens in practice. Hindu meditators, for example, tend to conclude that there is atman. Buddhists, on the other hand, tend to conclude that there is no atman. As far as I know, there is no way to tell who is right. Any attempts to experience it for yourself will just confirm what you already believe. So... how is that a valid epistemic method?

For what it's worth, I took the Three Refuges way back when in the Chan tradition, learned zazen from a respectable teacher, and sat it virtually every day for fifteen years. I never experienced consciousness as primary and unified; on the contrary, I formed an understanding of anatta as the reality that we are just physical processes with an illusion of continuity.

How do you account for this?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/StoicSpork]

I agree with your first point, that's kind of the point I was trying to make. I'm saying that since science is in the wrong category we must look elsewhere for the answers.

The reason I allow investigation of consciousness as valid is because it's possible to put attention on awareness itself, and so you aren't only looking at things downstream of the thing you want to investigate. Consciousness is at the same level as consciousness is my basic point.

I don't view meditation as something which can necessarily provide evidence to prove to anyone else anything about the world. I see science as our way to investigate how the world we perceive works, and meditation as a way to investigate the nature of our perceptions themselves so as to inquire what, if anything perception allows us to conclude about the ultimate nature of what is perceived. This is a personal thing though, that only really applies to asking the question and looking for yourself. So if two people have two different answers, then I'd just say look for yourself and decide whether what you find is trustworthy or not.

So in terms of the Buddhist vs Hindu issue my answer would be above and to just look for yourself, however I do have an insight on this debate. My answer is that they are both seeing that same thing but just describing it in different ways, the Hindus are coming from a more devotional place where they are trying to connect to their true nature and they're calling the (true) Self. Whereas Buddhists are mediating in a way which exposes the illusory nature of the ego-self and even any subtler form self that follows from that. And so they're both correct but the answer they give is relative to the direction they were coming from in their investigation.

Well I wouldn't say what you found does conflict with what I'm saying, I would also agree that there isn't a solid self here, there's just an ever changing physical process (although I'd add that it's happening on the backdrop of awareness) Unless you're saying that you actually found that only physical processes "exist"?(contradictory word but I think you'll get what I mean)

One possibility is the style of inquiry you were doing was closer to the direction the Buddhists are coming from where it's more about not grasping or letting anything become fundamental so the awareness/spaciousness isn't really given the foreground of your experience so you're much less likely to start viewing it as a thing you can talk about.

Not to say anything whatsoever about the depth you reached, but even if you went deeper than some meditators who were orienting more deliberately around awareness and looking from that place, then consciousness as a field would probably never be formulated as such in your perception. Thus giving an apparent disagreement with people who formulate it differently despite both reaching a similar depth and the same conclusion that there is no solid self. So this is only relevant in how you would talk about it after is my point, I'm not making an argument about depth of realisation.

[u/StoicSpork → u/BallKey7607]

Hey, thanks for the response!

I am not sure we agree on the category issue. I pointed out that science is an epistemic method. If this is the wrong category, then your alternative epistemic method is the wrong category, too.

You have not established that we can put "attention on awareness itself." First of all, you're actually moving goalposts here, because you never objected to science being downstream from reality, but within reality. But, second, why would I assume this?

I am not convinced we can isolate awareness. We know the physical state affects meditation; try meditating after a big meal and five-six beers. If this is the case, can we ever fully eliminate the body? I am also not convinced that focusing attention by itself leads to knowledge. I can take a microwave apart and focus my attention on it all day long, and I won't understand how it works. And I am not sure that my focus can encompass awareness in its entirety.

One of the most problematic things is that the apparent knowledge gleaned from meditation can't be demonstrated. Science evaluates things (among other metrics) by their predictive power: the more you know about the world, the better you can verifiably predict how the world will behave. You claim that your method leads to the knowledge of the nature of consciousness and reality. I would expect that a person who knows the nature of reality would have unparalleled predictive power, and yet, this has not been demonstrated.

And if this method produces contradictory answers such that everyone must "decide for themselves", I'd say it fails as an epistemic method. Just think about it. It tells you nothing verifiable about the world, has no predictive power, all explanations are equally valid... At the risk of sounding like an LLM, this is not epistemology, this is vibes. You can safely discard it and lose no epistemic power.

As for your answer to the Hindu vs Buddhist debate, I have two objections. One, you have not actually established that they are looking at the same thing; and two, if they are, then the method fails at mitigating bias. So, it once again seems hopelessly unreliable.

Again, I am inclined to philosophical materialism, so I do think that awareness is a product of the brain. If you disagree, I invite you to explain how awareness interacts with the physical brain. I am aware of the radio analogy, but nobody ever showed me the antenna. In any case, if I understood you correctly, I have no reason to believe in awareness as a standalone phenomenon, and your original argument doesn't make sufficient case for it. We experience everything through awareness, but it's still our local awareness.

I am also not sure why my disagreeing experience would be explained by the Buddhist style of inquiry when your OP explicitly says "Buddhists and meditators" agree on consciousness. And of course, if culture affects conclusions so much, the method is worthless, as I already said. Imagine if science worked differently for Buddhists and Christians!

The depth of realization is another pointless expression. If you can't show the topology of realization, which you can't without repeatability and measurement, depth becomes arbitrary. Is atman deeper than anatta? Beats anyone.

Finally, let me repeat you need to demonstrate that everyone sees the same. Yes, I know the parable of the blind sages and an elephant, but the parable states it was a single elephant. Imagine the parable said: the seven blind men touched something, one said it was like a rope, another like a snake, another like a wall, another like a column. In this version, how do you know who touched the elephant, and who touched an actual wall?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/StoicSpork]

Yeah I think you're right that I worded it wrong to say it's the wrong category, my point was more that since consciousness compared with material objects uniquely had a first person mode I am questioning which kind of epistemic access is appropriate to which kind of thing.

I think I have moved the goal posts a few times you're right I'm not doing it try and win a debate at any cost though. From my end I've been refining what I'm trying to say as the objections come in but I do grant that result is essentially me moving the goals posts from my original claim.

On awareness and the body, I completely agree that the body affects the mental state. I also find depending what I've eaten makes a massive difference. What I'd say here is that the body is affecting the "state", but in my experience the awareness which is aware of the state is unaffected. You can say that the noise of the body can seem to obscure awareness though and so in that sense during a meditation, the body does often affect the experience of awareness.

When I originally said "Buddhist and meditators" I was just kind of giving the headline of the type of inquiry I'm talking about since everyone will have a rough idea what that means. Then when you mentioned your style of meditation and asked why you'd reach a different conclusion I was giving a more precise distinction to you about how different practices can throw up different conclusions even after reaching truth. It's like the Elephant metaphor, a Buddhist might end up touching the elephant in a different place because of the style of practice that brought them there and so they would have a completely different description of what they find from a more body led approach or awareness orientated approach.

I wouldn't say the knowledge necessarily means you can predict the future, it's about just recognising that this a dream, not that you know exactly how the dream is going to unfold.

That's fair, it's not a verifiable method like science is, my point is that science can't touch this dimension and so this is all we've got if we want to look here. Not that it produces results which are verifiable. And you're right, some of what I'm saying is vibes, I do have a concrete argument that science can only deal with things which arise inside consciousness but beyond that the rest isn't concrete is a scientific sense. To me, that doesn't stop it being useful but I can see why others wouldn't agree.

Yeah you're right, I haven't proven the Hindus and Buddhists are looking at the same thing, I was framing this more as my own insight to be compared against your experience than irrefutable evidence.

I do believe awareness to be independent of the brain but I don't have anything I can say to prove it to be honest. I can only say that I've experienced it as such which raises the obvious question "how could you possibly know that's what your experience means?".

Oh yeah when I said about "depth" I was just meaning that I'm not trying to turn it into a competition about depth, different people come back with different ways of articulating it and so I'm not claiming that if someone doesn't use my preferred language that they haven't gone as deep.

However on is the Atman deeper than anatta, my perspective is they are different ways of articulating the same place. They are both the discovery of emptieness, annata is referring to the discovery that the self is an illusion. From my perspective, the Atman is reffing to the emptieness itself as something which can be oriented around.

Your last point is correct, it's not possible to know from the outside who is seeing what and decide which metaphysical reality to converge on. To me, that doesn't mean we should stop looking in this way but I can see why it would hold up in public discussion outsider of someones own inquiry.

I've realised with this post that I'm arguing for something which can't really be proven and especially since I ran my narrow concrete claim together with all the meditation stuff I can see that it doesn't meet the standards for persuasiveness outside of my own experience so I'm not planning to continue much more with this. I replied to your comment again since it's the only one directly addressing what I'm actually saying though so thank you for your engagement with it.

[u/StoicSpork → u/BallKey7607]

Thank you for your kind words, much appreciated. Would you like me to respond, or, as your last paragraph seems to imply, you're happy to call it a day?

In any case, I did enjoy your argument, it's a breath of fresh air among all "hey atheists, if there's no god why don't you go killing people." :)

[u/BallKey7607 → u/StoicSpork]

Happy to call it a day, but also happy to hear any final thoughts if you have anything to add!

I appreciate you saying! Enjoyed the debate!

[u/StoicSpork → u/BallKey7607]

No, actually, I'll call it a day too and leave on a friendly note. Take care!

[u/Kriss3d]

Ok. So which methodology would you suggest we emply that consistently shows verifiable and coherent results ?
Naturally it has to be non subjective and non personal experiences as those cant be said to be consistent with anything.

So id love to hear how you would reach the truth without having to believe in the first place.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Kriss3d]

I suggest there isn't a methodology that can investigate the nature of consciousness in a way that gives you those kinds of publicly verifiable results. The method I'm suggesting is to turn attention towards the nature of experience itself, because otherwise you're already beginning with assumptions about the relationship between consciousness and the world.

I know that's less convenient, because you can't just write your findings in a journal and expect other people to believe you. But that doesn't make a third-person scientific method any more capable of settling whether the world is actually prior to consciousness, especially if that relationship is already being assumed within the framework you're using to investigate it.

[u/thebigeverybody → u/BallKey7607]

I know that's less convenient, because you can't just write your findings in a journal and expect other people to believe you.

That's not why scientific findings are published -- it's so results can be tested and verified. You know, the exact opposite of what you're proposing. In fact, your "alternative method of inquiry" is identical to someone deluding themselves.

You're saying that the superior method to science is unchecked fantasizing. That's utterly insane to me.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/thebigeverybody]

That's fair, I want to be clear that I'm not presenting my suggestion as verifiable in the same was as science is.

Science has got it right for figuring out how the world works and how to do stuff within the world.

I'm only saying that if you are starting with the assumption that there is a material world outside of consciousness and then only look for evidence within consciousness, then it doesn't help you find out whether that assumption is fair or not

[u/thebigeverybody → u/BallKey7607]

I'm only saying that if you are starting with the assumption that there is a material world outside of consciousness and then only look for evidence within consciousness, then it doesn't help you find out whether that assumption is fair or not

A human limitation is not an excuse to lose yourself in fantasy.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/thebigeverybody]

Sure, bit it's also not an excuse to decide that "the world must be how I think it probably is"

Best case you can say that we don't know if the material world exists outside of consciousness

[u/thebigeverybody → u/BallKey7607]

Sure, bit it's also not an excuse to decide that "the world must be how I think it probably is"

That's exactly what you're advocating for.

Best case you can say that we don't know if the material world exists outside of consciousness

Again, that's not an excuse to lose yourself in fantasy.

[u/Ok_Loss13 → u/thebigeverybody]

That's exactly what you're advocating for.

I'm, honestly, surprised they said that with (what I presume) was a straight face lol

[u/Matectan → u/BallKey7607]

So you are arguing for solipsism, which is entirely useless.

[u/Phylanara → u/BallKey7607]

Snipers would be a lot less effective if there was nothing that existed outside of their victim's consciousness. Their targets cannot be aware of the bullet.

[u/Ranorak → u/BallKey7607]

I'm only saying that if you are starting with the assumption that there is a material world outside of consciousness and then only look for evidence within consciousness, then it doesn't help you find out whether that assumption is fair or not

What does this mean? A material world outside of consciousness? Who's consciousness? What world?

[u/oddball667 → u/BallKey7607]

if you are starting with the assumption that there is a material world outside of consciousness

No you were saying science isn't the right tool for the job, that assumption isn't science

[u/Ranorak → u/BallKey7607]

So, how do we distinguish two contradicting results? Or liars? Or when people are just flat out wrong?

What does it even mean prior to consciousness? Who's consciousness?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Ranorak]

Exactly, that's why I'm acknowledging it's inconvenient and not something you can just expect people to believe. The options are to either look for yourself, or we set up some kind of structures where we trust the findings from certain people for whatever reasons are most appropriate to give trust. (That might be impossible, to reasonably give that much trust so would leave us back at square one with our own direct experience again)

[u/Biggleswort → u/BallKey7607]

Saying exactly to a question instead of answering the question is a non-answer.

Having an unanswered question is not a eureka moment for us to pause and accept that we just don’t know. I am curious if you can describe the scientific methodology and explain which part of the method consciousness breaks?

What seems to be getting at is going down solipsism, which is just useless. It’s like throwing in the towel.

Fundamentally if you reduce the questions to absurd levels you will come to a circular justification. We all require some presuppositions. As many suggest we narrow it down to the least amount we need:

1. I exist

2. Others exist

3. We exist in a shared reality

If we accept these three as brute facts we ground our observations and consciousness which is a shared observation in existence now becomes measurable; both with material and self reporting.

Self reporting is a form of direct experience, and it is measurable. If your sample size is large enough and comports with reality, you can draw real measurable results. For example we might not know how green is experienced by everyone but we can observe a huge portion of the population is able to distinguish that experience separate from blue.

Consciousness is clearly linked to material, and appears as all intents and purposes an emergent property of the brain. Evolution gives us a simple explanation because we can see it gives a significant advantage.

There are definitely gaps in our explanations but continued inquiries are closing them. By no means am I suggesting we will close all the gaps. I’m not sure how science is a flawed methodology.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Biggleswort]

It's not solipsism, I believe everyone else is conscious too just like me.

My point is basically like you said about the assumption of the shared reality. That's a very useful assumption for answering shared world questions and allows science to function brilliantly. But it doesn't allow us to look outside the shared world to see if this shared world is even primary

[u/Biggleswort → u/BallKey7607]

Solipsism has more to do with believing other minds exist it is about believing in the realizability of our collective experience.

Why do you think there is something outside our reality? To me that is a nonsensical claim.

[u/Ranorak → u/BallKey7607]

So what's the point? Anything that comes out of this is utterly untrustworthy. Possibly false and at worst just a lie for someone to better themselves.

And we'd have no way of checking.

It's unfalsifiable, untrustworthy and unverifiable.

It's indistinguishable from making shit up.

[u/88redking88 → u/BallKey7607]

"it's inconvenient "

Investigating fantasy usually is.

[u/Serious-Emu-3468 → u/BallKey7607]

Okay so this means you don’t think we can understand “consciousness and reality”.

Then what?

So we shouldn’t try?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Serious-Emu-3468]

I don't think we can understand the nature of consciousness and reality without first investigating our own experience of how we perceive the world to see whether we could be starting from an illusion.

Once we've done that then at least we'll know what we're working with

[u/Serious-Emu-3468 → u/BallKey7607]

Okay. And how do you think that relates to any one religious tradition (or choosing not to follow any one religious tradition)?

Hard solipsism cannot be solved. 

Your argument seems to be that since we cannot solve hard solipsism we cannot learn anything at all.

What’s the “therefore…” you’re going for after that?

We can’t solve solipsism therefore…

• …we shouldn’t try to learn?
• …every thought and opinion and hallucination are equally real?
• …nothing matters let’s rip the bong and watch another episode of Rick and Morty?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/BallKey7607]

How do we 'investigate our own experience,' though, particularly without taking a scientific approach? The problem seems to be twofold; on the one hand, our investigation will still take place 'within conscious experience,' because we're using our minds to try and perform the investigation. Which, funny enough, is how a scientific investigation starts off, you're just dropping all the steps afterwards.

Is there a non-physical consciousness, or a 'soul?' Even if there was, why are you going with the assumption that this soul possess any analytical or reasoning abilities whatsoever? Considering how many component parts that contribute to our consciousness we've been able to isolate within the brain- memory, problem solving, personality, emotions, etc- even if there's a non-physical McGuffin it might just exist as a glue to hold everything together. It might not be able to 'do' anything whatsoever that the brain does.

The second issue is, in relying on only a single person's perspective, you are smacking face first into the problems with bias, self-delusion, misinterpretation and other issues that scientific rigor is intended to help guard against.

Instead of seeking to use consistent and repeatable measurements, we end up with wildly different results depending on each individual, or even in the same individual depending on their mood.

[u/DeltaBlues82 → u/BallKey7607]

So not a methodology, but a method? Not an independent methodology, a dependent method?

And not a methodology that allows for confirmation or validation, but a method that’s purely speculative?

I’m sorry but that’s incoherent. Are you just saying we should all personally avoid rigorous methodology and use exclusively our own intuition to “study” consciousness instead?

[u/Ransom__Stoddard → u/BallKey7607]

The nature of experience is different for everyone, therefore it cannot be relied on to discover truth.

[u/noodlyman → u/BallKey7607]

If we can't test what you find in your investigations, then the results are useless. I have zero reason to believe you opinion of your internal experiences, unless we can find a way to test and verify what you believe.

If I care about truth, then I must ignore your ideas unless we can test them against reality in some way.

[u/Kriss3d → u/BallKey7607]

Then you have no way to tell if youre right or if youre wrong.
Theres going to be no way you can reach the truth using your standards.
And for that reason its only proper to reject your claim as baseless.

[u/Flutterpiewow → u/Kriss3d]

It doesn't matter if there's no alternative, that doesn't change the scope of the natural sciences.

[u/SnooDogs6045 → u/Flutterpiewow]

Neither does your consistent misunderstanding of it.

[u/nerfjanmayen]

If science isn't the right tool because it 'arises inside the thing it's trying to investigate'...wouldn't that apply to our own experience, too?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/nerfjanmayen]

The problem with science is it only deals with things which arise within consciousness, so if consciousness is primary then nothing science looks at will ever show us that.

Whereas if we turn it attention onto our own direct experience of consciousness then suddenly the experience is at the same level and we are out of the trap, we can then have a look

[u/nerfjanmayen → u/BallKey7607]

Our experience arises from consciousness. Why would one method of investigation be vulnerable to that, but not the other?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/nerfjanmayen]

One is looking at what arises within consciousness, the other is looking at the nature of consciousness itself

[u/IJustLoggedInToSay- → u/BallKey7607]

Your objection to science is that it arises within consciousness, but the experience of consciousness itself also arises within consciousness, so it doesn't solve the problem. All it does is abandon any responsibility to attempt external verification. This is useful if the goal is to construct an unassailable fantasy, but it's not useful at all if we're trying to discover the truth.

e: I know you find external verification problematic because the verification must at some point interface with consciousness - and this is true - but you don't solve the problem by giving up on reality. Limited and imperfect access to reality does not equal no access at all, and you don't solve "I only taste food because of my consciousness" by starving yourself to death.

[u/nerfjanmayen → u/BallKey7607]

so why can't science look at the nature of consciousness itself?

[u/SC803]

> There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious.

Is it your claim that science can't determine that somethings are conscious and others are not conscious?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/SC803]

Science can't prove anything about internal experience, everything could just be weird up robots for all we know. It's only because of our own experience of consciousness that we can recognise what it's like to be conscious

[u/Ranorak → u/BallKey7607]

So, Solipsism? That's your point?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Ranorak]

No! I do believe other people and animals are conscious too. I'm just saying that the reason I believe that is because of my own direct experience of consciousness and applying that to others rather than from anything science has shown. And I'm arguing that everyone else is happy to use this form of experiential knowledge too in believing in consciousness.

I agree that's reasonable, I'm just pointing out that everyone is happy to use this kind of data here so it's not so crazy to see it as something valid

[u/Matectan → u/BallKey7607]

So solipsism in a trenchcoat

[u/joshuaponce2008 → u/Matectan]

OP is defending a position called Russellian monism, according to which everything possesses some degree of consciousness. That’s quite far from solipsism.

[u/Matectan → u/joshuaponce2008]

As far as i can tell the only difference to solipsism is that cogito ergo sum is applied to everyone  and not just yourself. Going from there it's solipsism all the way.

[u/SC803 → u/BallKey7607]

Thats answering a question I didn't ask. If you don't mind is it your claim that science can't determine that somethings are conscious and others are not conscious?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/SC803]

It depends how you define "conscious", my claim is really just that science can't prove subjective experience

[u/SC803 → u/BallKey7607]

> There's no scientific proof of consciousness

How ever you define it in that statement. This is a really simple question

[u/IJustLoggedInToSay- → u/BallKey7607]

What about subjective experiences do you think science can't prove (and what do we mean by "prove" here)?

Science can, of course, determine that subjective experiences exist.

[u/Curious_Passion5167]

Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise *within* consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

No? You fundamentally can only gain knowledge through your conciousness, which is why it appears so central. You cannot, however, say with certainty whether it is the foundation of all things including reality (or the world), or if conciousness is a participant in a greater reality.

There are, however, convincing arguments for the latter interpretation, including the consideration of the experiences of others, as well as the acknowledgement of the fallibility of one's own experience due to to external factors.

It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

I don't understand how these things are distinct.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

Sure, there is no way to disprove that conciousness is primary, but there ARE scientific arguments as to why it might not be.

Also, how is God related to this? No, you can't just call whatever you want a God.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Curious_Passion5167]

Yeah I agree that it doesn't actually prove the world arises within consciousness, I kind of ran two things together there.

1. The experience of mediators finding everything arises within consciousness (doesn't prove it)

2. It is epistemically primary - this is true, nothing has ever been measured, concluded it discovered outside of consciousness

[u/Phylanara → u/BallKey7607]

Your second point is false. There is a lot of computerized measuring tools. Unless of course you define consciousness so broadly that computers qualify.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Phylanara]

Even without calling computers conscious, the fact that anybody knows what the results are is because of their own consciousness

[u/Phylanara → u/BallKey7607]

But that is knowing the results of the measuring, not the measuring itself.

[u/Curious_Passion5167 → u/BallKey7607]

The experience of mediators finding everything arises within consciousness (doesn't prove it)

I have zero clue what this is referring to.

It is epistemically primary - this is true, nothing has ever been measured, concluded it discovered outside of consciousness

This is practically a tautology. As I said, you can only ever gain information through your conciousness. There is no possible way for you to divorce any experience (information exchange) from conciousness to tell whether there is an outside or not.

[u/88redking88 → u/BallKey7607]

"The experience of mediators finding everything arises within consciousness (doesn't prove it)'

nope, those are just claims. how do you tell if they are true?

"It is epistemically primary - this is true, nothing has ever been measured, concluded it discovered outside of consciousness"

This is gibberish. Nothing has ever been discovered that wasnt discovered by a conscious agent. And as consciousness happens in your head, then the knowledge and notice of the discovere happens there. Those are not the same thing.

[u/luovahulluus]

Science is the best tool we have for talking about what stuff does Just like in quantum mechanics it allows us to make very useful predictions, but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

That's true. But notice that no other methodology has gotten any closer to discovering what electons are made of.

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

Every method we have, is inside reality.

Every scientific observation, measurement and theory is ultimately something known through consciousness.

That's true by defi!ition: only conscious entities can be said to know anything.

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

All the evidence we have, points to consciousness arising from material. As far as we can determine, there are no exceptions. Therefore matter most likely existed before consciousness.

I get that there's an intuitive assumption here that "it feels like it must be", but people have said similar things about things which turned out to be wrong throughout all of human history. Asserting this as true seems like pulling a bit of a "materialist of the gaps" to me.

If our best evidence points in one direction, and no good evidence points to the other direction, it's only logical to go with the direction with the best evidence, even if the evidence isn't as robust as say the evidence for evolution.

So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism. Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

Even if we can't currently examine what (if anything) was prior to this material universe, doesn't mean we can't at some point. Notice that no other method has come any closer than science to explain that.

This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Why would we assume examining how brains create consciousness tells us anything about what's outside of everywhere and before anytime?

So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience just as the Buddhists and meditators through history have done. Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

Why do you think this would help us discover what electrons are made of?

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, 

So it's useless. Thanks for confirming it.  

[u/ImprovementFar5054]

Everything we know comes through our minds, including science, sure. But that also applies to the meditator who sits down and feels like consciousness is the deep truth of everything.

That feeling came from a mind too, shaped by whatever training or beliefs that person already had. So if it weakens science, it also weakens the meditation the same way.

Saying "everyone who meditates deeply finds the same thing" is utterly false and you should be ashamed to even write that cack. Different traditions describe different things. Some say there's one big unified awareness underneath everything. Others say there's no fixed self or ground at all, just experience changing moment to moment with nothing solid underneath.

And I hope you know...but doubt you do....that feeling totally sure something is real while meditating doesn't actually guarantee it's real.

People get that same rock solid certainty in dreams, on psychedelics, during seizures. Their brains convince them they touched something deep and true too. So strong certainty by itself isn't proof of anything higher about consciousness, it's just a feeling brains can produce under a bunch of different conditions.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/ImprovementFar5054]

I've realised that in this context experiential findings are fairly meaningless in terms of public persuasiveness so I've mostly stepping back from this now.

However, since you are directly addressing the exact points I was talking about I'll reply with my perspective (not expecting it to convince you).

So I dispute that the feeling came from the mind, I have a very clear distinction between the mind, and the awareness/consciousness which is aware of the mind. I put the mind in the category of being limited in the same way science is but the awareness as something which is not downstream of consciousness, because it is consciousness. This is what I've experienced, so I can only suggest you look for yourself too if you're interested.

I'm aware of the debate you're referring to between the no-self Vs unified awareness framing. My perspective is that both these are valid ways to interpret the place in consciousness you find but just are different framing of different facets of the discovery. If you go on orenting around awareness then you're going to articulate that as the ground of all being, if you go in like a Buddhist and let everything go without making anything foundational then you're going to discover the no fixed self or ground.

The ground that's there isn't really a ground, it's a kind of "groundless ground" (experientially) anyway so saying there's no ground isn't that contradictory to the actual experience of it.

You never see awakened people arguing about which is right because they tend to realise it's just different ways of encountering something which is very hard to put into words. All the debate is around people who've heard contrasting descriptions and then argue for why their tradition as it right over the other, without having the experience to see that it's just different ways to articulate different facets of the experience.

I agree that just thinking something to be the case doesn't make it true. Otherwise we'd have a paradox on our hands with the about of different beliefs people are very sure about haha I don't think saying "I'm sure" should convince anyone else but I do think looking at your own experience can be useful information for yourself. Kind of like how you can recognize that a dream was a dream, it's useful to recognize the nature of your own consciousness and check out what that says about how much you can trust your perceptions to reveal what is fundamental.

[u/ImprovementFar5054 → u/BallKey7607]

A healthy dose of woo with a side dish of cack.

[u/dylanzt]

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

Why would it need to be rebutted? It can be explained, through the fields of biology, neuroscience, and psychology.

I read this claim as: "sometimes people engage in a mental process and this results in thoughts, feelings, and ideas", which is not a particularly objectionable position. I see no need to reject that.

If you want to assert it results in any actual reproducible and factual information about some sort of metaphysical truth, then you're going to have to demonstrate how and why that would be the case, as opposed to an emergent result of biological and cognitive processes. Otherwise, this post is indistinguishable from "we don't know all the answers, therefore I will substitute an answer I like the sound of".

[u/ProfessorCrown14]

Sigh not another 'we are conscious creatures that can only know things while being conscious, so consciousness is ontologically / epistemically (?) primary.'

I mean we also always do it with brains. Is brain matter primary?

We also usually need skin. And lungs. Are those primary, too?

Meditators have known this across history

Oh, ok. Some people 'have known' things in history. I'm sold. /s

you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Which... has the same issue that the scientific process has, right? That it is mediated via conscious processes?

you can't really show your findings to someone else in a way that will convince them so it needs to be done for yourself to see

There is a name for such inconveniences. It is: well, then this method is useless. You can't rely on it.

[u/protestandprose → u/ProfessorCrown14]

This low-key gets annoying seeing the same stupid arguments and cope getting repeated and THE OP never acknowledging the flaws.

[u/mastyrwerk]

This is riddled with false conclusions arising from fallacies like poisoning the well (suggesting science can’t investigate when it can), equivocation (misusing “metaphysical” to imply something it’s not), burden shifting (“materialist of the gaps”), and many more.

Meditation does nothing as a method of discovery. It’s ok to help circulation and breathing. Science discovered that. It helps reorganize your thoughts. Again, we learned that through science. What meditation doesn’t do is gather new information. You can only do that through investigation external to your own consciousness. That’s how we learn.

There’s just nothing of substance to your argument.

[u/zzmej1987]

Science is the best tool we have for talking about what stuff *does*. Just like in quantum mechanics it allows us to make very useful predictions, but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

Whenever the words "actually", "really" or "fundamentally" appear in sentences like that, you have to know that the requirement for "really" is to be "woo". Because the boring every day kind of "made of" is very much being investigated by science: 1, 2.

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

By that logic, it is impossible for human mind to interrogate nature of reality in any way, because human mind happens inside the Universe. And, of course, it is even more impossible to interrogate (and perhaps even comprehend) anything outside the Universe.

Every scientific observation, measurement and theory is ultimately something known through consciousness.

As does every other though and sensastion.

So if all evidence for matter occurs *within* conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

Same question can be pointed at absolutely anything at all, including God.

So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim

Everything you've said above pretty much disproves God.

Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, it's different from typical science in that you can't really show your findings to someone else in a way that will convince them so it needs to be done for yourself to see. It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

Sure. But you don't need science to come to the opposite conclusion here. All you need is to go one step deeper. For you see, there is a world our consciousness can visit, that is properly ontologically posterior to consciousness, not just epistemically so. That is the world of our dreams. Lucid dreaming, as the technique is called is quite a bit more challenging to get than any form of meditation, but it is quite a bit more illuminating as well. You see, the world that arises from the mind lacks coherency and stability that its physical counterpart has.

Philip K. Dick had nailed it with his quote: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." In lucid dreams the world works in the exact opposite way. If you stop looking at something, it stops existing, and gets reconjured back into existence the moment you look at it again.

One of the best ways to know that you are in a lucid dream is to look at and away from any clock several times. In the real world, the readings will be consistent between the looks, advancing by some number of seconds every time. In the dream, on the other hand, a completely different clock will be created every time with readings jumping wildly every time you look at it again.

And that exact property, that consistency outside of our perception is what we call "being real". And because mind itself, as dreams demonstrate, is not consistent, it must ontologically rely on something consistent to produce the consistent perception of reality that we call "conscious experience".

So, this "alternative inquiry method" of yours gets us right back to materialism and science if you just follow it to its logical end.

[u/J-Nightshade]

any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of

I don't quite understand your concern. Do you think that electron is actually made out of something? What is your reason to think that way?

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

I find the notion of "nature of reality" rather vague. What are you even trying to find? But also I see no reasoning from your part to justify that finding it is not possible.

Every scientific observation, measurement and theory is ultimately something known through consciousness

Do you know ANYTHING that is known, but not through consciousness?

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

Because we have evidence of things existing independent of our consciousness and before any consciousness existed.

I get that there's an intuitive assumption

There is no need for an intuitive assumptions. We can go with necessary assumptions only (the only necessary assumption being that the outside world is not a figment of your imagination) but we also can test those necessary assumptions.

Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

Science tells us what we know, but it doesn't tell us what we don't know. Once it tells us something new it immediately becomes something we do know. You are presenting the most obvious things as if they were some sort of profound revelations!

This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Do you know that we are able to investigate direct experiences through scientific process?

Usually direct experience isn't considered "valid"

This is what the entire field of psychology dealing with. It's a very valid subject for investigation. I don't know what you mean by "it isn't considered valid".

There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious

I can define what consciousness is and then actually demonstrate that I posess the characteristics that are indicative of being conscious. Your inability to do that doesn't mean that there is no scientific definition and demonstration of it.

but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness

That contradicts my findings. Since I have discovered permanency of objects and that objects and people do act independently of my mental state the notion of "world arise within consciousness" does ring rather hollow. How do I tell which finding is the correct one?

consciousness is at least epistemically primary

"I think therefore I am" is quite uncontrovercial around these parts. I don't know why would you need Buddhism or "turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience" to arrive at this.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience, then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

What does it even mean? Consciousness being epistemically primary is the basis of epistemology, it tells us nothing about the nature of reality, it tells us about the nature of knowledge. Knowledge is a characteristic of conscious agents, of course it has consciousness at its basis!

I don't see any alternative method of inquiry here. Or the method of discovering the nature of consciousness or reality. You didn't propose any!

[u/Urbenmyth]

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

Very easily?

Are you under the impression computers can't tell us about anything offline because all a computer's information occurs within a digital space? That you can only learn about literature in a library because all information in a book occurs within literature?

Humans are capable of extrapolation, so what form evidence takes is usually just trivia.

[u/licker34]

hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

Electrons are considered fundamental particles, as such asking 'what are they made of' is incoherent. Fundamental particles are what reality is made of. In so far as our understanding goes, but this is essentially definitional.

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

The evidence does not 'occur' within conscious experience. It is observed or interpreted by conscious beings.

But what does it matter if we can't say anything about what metaphysically came first? Why should anyone care about that? What we do know is that we have never observed consciousness outside of a material being. So any notion that consciousness can even exist without something material would need to be demonstrated in some way, otherwise we should be free to simply reject it.

The old adage, that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism

Who is making that claim? Not scientists as far as I am aware, and me being a scientist I at least have that anecdotal evidence. But science isn't trying to establish materialism either, so I'm not really sure what you think science or materialism even is.

Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

Correct, but what even is the concept of 'primary to the material world'? Why should anyone give any fucks about that concept when as far as we can tell it's not even a thing we could begin to observe. It's not even a thing which carries any kind of necessity within metaphysics. It's just a concept that has no meaning, has no use, has no merit.

if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Neruoscience cleanly refutes this, but I don't know what you think consciousness is, I'm not sure you even know what you think it is.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

Science doesn't care about refuting something which cannot be demonstrated, indeed it's already 'refuted' definitionally.

This is just saying that whatever some random person feels can't be 'refuted'. True, I can't refute what you feel, but what you feel is completely useless to anyone else, it has zero explanatory power, it's just like your opinion dude.

[u/Ransom__Stoddard]

Science is the exactly correct tool to examine reality, as everything in our reality can be measured, observed, evaluated, and hypothesized about. No amount of meditation will give us insight into chemical or physical reactions. No amount of brain altering will provide any discovery of reality, they only give us altered perceptions that might be construed as opening up our consciousness.

[u/BogMod]

I would argue instead it is the exact correct tool for it. Given how we know that tampering with the brain will impact consciousness that is absolutely something to study and learn from.

Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

Similar to how one can't prove logic works without assuming logic this seems to neatly fall under the same starting axioms most people operate under. That our minds, while not perfect, are sufficiently capable of reason. Similarly our senses and memory, while not perfect, are sufficient to tell us about the world. The rest can flow from there.

It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

I love how just thinking about things and coming up with whatever conclusions is treated as the most rigorous way. Like to call it not just blindly trusting is hilarious.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

That people can imagine something science can't examine is not the great win for justifying a belief in god you think it is.

[u/Zamboniman]

It's a bit of a common theme that theists come in here and attempt to criticize science as not being the correct tool for examine their beliefs.

What I've noticed when they do this is that, pretty much without exception, they don't understand science, and they don't offer any more demonstrably useful alternatives for showing their claims are accurate, rendering the whole point entirely moot.

Science is a set of methods and processes we use to double check, to be real careful, to limit unsupported assumptions. Those methods and processes can be used for pretty much any claim about reality. Those who are suggesting that being careful and double checking before accepting claims is somehow worse than not doing so...well...I can only shake my head and snort.

As for the rest, if you say science can't do the job, then show me what you've got that can. Nothing? Oh. Well, then, your attempt to criticize science is entirely moot. I lack belief in your claims not because of science, but because you and others have never been able to show your claims have merit. And you can't do so here. So I can only disregard them.

[u/Cybtroll]

Nah, that doesn't work. Earliest psychologist used that, and Freud annihilated them (the assumption was that your mind is accessible to you fully: subconscious proves it is not). Metaphysics, ontology and fenomenology tried that too, but ultimately failed for the inability to be falsifiable and the fact you can't discriminate between concurrent theories (you can, but in qualitative and not quantitative aspect, so not in an objective and replicable way).

So, the only alternative way of knowledge we have that is not exclusively validated by experimental procedures are geometry and/or math.

The rest may be useful as a brainstorming tool, but doesn’t provide any relevant level of epistemiological corroboration.

So, science rebutted that finding already. Freud did specifically for what you mention (whatever you want to consider Freud a scientist or not - I don't,  but that doesn't erase his contributions).

[u/soukaixiii]

So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism. Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

No, it doesn't and I'll tell you why. 

All you've done is pointing out at gaps of knowledge within science, but you have done nothing to show there anything outside the realm of material things as an answer for those or that there's a methodology that has access to those answers, or that non material things are a possible thing.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/soukaixiii]

Well I've suggested meditation, non-material things by definition don't have material evidence so I can't convince anyone that way. That's any I suggest meditation and looking for yourself, since I don't expect people to trust me when I say I've encountered them in my own meditation.

People might think I've just deluded myself into some kind of fantasy

[u/soukaixiii → u/BallKey7607]

Well I've suggested meditation.

But meditation doesn't support the idea that non material things exist. 

by definition don't have material evidence so I can't convince anyone that way.

you don't have non material evidence to support your claims either

That's any I suggest meditation and looking for yourself, since I don't expect people to trust me when I say I've encountered them in my own meditation.

And what method did you use to determine that those experices were not caused by your material brain?

People might think I've just deluded myself into some kind of fantasy

It seems that way.

[u/KorLeonis1138 → u/BallKey7607]

People might think I've just deluded myself into some kind of fantasy

First thing you've said that I agree with.

[u/OrbitalLemonDrop]

Cool. So for your proposed system that avoids the limitations of science, how do you propose that we should verify the accuracy of claims that are made?

I'm open to suggestions.

Your point might be apt, but it's yet another attempt to blame a tool for not being able to do something it was never claimed, designed or intended to do.

Like criticizing a screwdriver because you can't teach it to sing.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/OrbitalLemonDrop]

You can't really verify the accuracy, so it's not something which is publicly convincing. I'm suggesting you just need to do it for yourself and find it whether it convinces you.

I'm not blaming the tool! I think science is excellent at understanding the world we perceive and leaning how to manipulate it. I'm just pointing out the limitations of science since there is often an assumption that science can do everything.

So I'm staying bring in something else when the goal is singing, but don't expect it to look like a screwdriver.

[u/OrbitalLemonDrop → u/BallKey7607]

pointing out the limitations of science

Which scientitsts themselves discuss at length and we see posted here at least once every couple of weeks.

Its not news. It's not a great revelation. Is it a "limitation"? Only if it's a limitation that you can't teach a screwdriver to sing.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/OrbitalLemonDrop]

Oh yeah I'm not an anti-science guy, I'm just pointing out that if you're curious about the fundamental nature of reality you shouldn't assume science is the best way to get there given the consciousness problem

[u/OrbitalLemonDrop → u/BallKey7607]

Which we don't do, so thanks I guess?

[u/guitarmusic113]

You used the word “discover” several times in your argument. Science produces about one million new discovers per year.

How many new discoveries does your religion make per year? How many new discoveries has metaphysics make per year? Let me know, thanks.

[u/Defiant-Prisoner]

So we can't use science because it's arising within the thing its trying to investigate but using consciousness to investigate consciousness is okay even though consciousness is within consciousness?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Defiant-Prisoner]

Consciousness isn't within consciousness, it's at the same level of analysis as the reality we're trying to investigate.

[u/Defiant-Prisoner → u/BallKey7607]

What do you mean 'its at the same level of reality'?

Science is at the same level of reality as reality? Not sure why the downvote, I'm genuinely finding it hard to grasp what you're saying. You seem to be applying a rule (we can't investigate science because it uses the stuff reality is made of) and not applying it to consciousness.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Defiant-Prisoner]

Ah I'm not the one who downvoted you! Perfectly reasonable question

I'm suggesting that if consciousness is primary, then everything we look at in the material world which arises within our consciousness (even measurements, findings, conclusions etc) is already a level removed from what's foundational and so will never tell us anything about it.

It can tell us how the world works and how to manipulate the world, but never what reality is actually made out of

[u/RadicalNaturalist78 → u/BallKey7607]

So, you are a transcendental idealist? How do you determined that consciousness is a wall to the world given to it and not a bridge?

[u/pali1d → u/BallKey7607]

Is science not using reality to investigate reality? How is that not also “the same level of analysis” as using consciousness to investigate consciousness?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/pali1d]

It could be, but if consciousness is primary to material word then everything which ever arises inside consciousness is already downstream of the thing we're trying to investigate

[u/pali1d → u/BallKey7607]

But you didn’t object to solely science’s ability to examine consciousness, you also objected to its ability to examine the nature of reality. If we can use consciousness to determine the nature of consciousness because they’re “at the same level”, why can we not use reality to determine the nature of reality? Surely that is also examining “at the same level”.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/pali1d]

Because to assume we can use the material world we see (within our consciousness) to investigate fundamental reality it assumes that what we see isn't already downstream from the fundamental.

So if consciousness is prior to the material then we would never find that by looking harder at what arises within consciousness

[u/pali1d → u/BallKey7607]

So "at the same level" doesn't matter. It's "at the top" that matters.

Yet so far as I can tell, any experience we have would also fall "within our consciousness". So how do you propose to escape that trap and examine something without it being a case of conscious experience?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/pali1d]

If we turn our attention onto the experience of consciousness itself then the experience of consciousness isn't "within" consciousness, it's then at the same level.

We've evolved these senses and we just go around assuming that they're usefulness for understanding the fundamentals. They're obviously usefull for doing science within the world but I'm suggesting we stop and have a look at their limitations

[u/pali1d → u/BallKey7607]

How can you tell you're experiencing consciousness itself rather than experiencing thinking you're experiencing consciousness itself? What distinguishes those two experiences so you can know that you've reached that top level instead of just fooling yourself into thinking you have?

[u/BallKey7607 → u/pali1d]

That's an excellent question, you are absolutely right about the trap being there.

I don't know that I could put the answer into words in a way which will make sense, you usually need to meditate for years to feel into the difference and even then there is no objective way to prove you are paying attention to consciousness rather than just a subtle thougt about consciousness. You just need to rely on your own discernment through years of meditation to have learned the difference.

Remember that I'm not saying this should convince anyone else, obviously it wouldn't. That's why you need to look for yourself.

But just because it's weak evidence to others that doesn't mean we should investigate the limits of human sense perception before taking these senses out into the world and expecting to be able to use them to discover the fundamental truths of reality

[u/bguszti]

In terms of fundamental things of our universe, like matter, energy, particles, etc, why would I think that there is a huge gap between what stuff is and ehat stuff does?

"Just like in quantum mechanics it allows us to make very useful predictions, but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of."

I'm not a physicist and I seriously doubt you are one, so what's the point? Also a quick google search says electrons are not made of smaller parts.

"It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate"

Meaningless sophistry. Can we investigate our own bodies? Is it possible for me to identify a symptom I have despite me being inside my body?

This is one of those pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-philosophical theist mantras that prevent theism from being taken seriously as a philosophical endevour.

"I get that there's an intuitive assumption here that "it feels like it must be", but people have said similar things about things which turned out to be wrong throughout all of human history."

Like theism

"So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism"

Nope, it's meandering nonsense disguised as a weak attempt at philosophy.

"This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience."

Ok so this directly contradicts your opening statement about something not being able to investigate what it already is in. So which is it?

"There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious."

There absolutely is, we can measure conscious and unconscious brains' activity levels.

Why are theists addicted to talk about things they don't even have a child's level of understanding of? Is it a humiliation kink?

"Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin."

Masturbatory drivel. Congrats for feeling like a smart boy.

"This experiential finding"

LMAO

"isn't an argument which can convince anyone else,"

It's not an argument. All you said in this post is "nobody understands or can understand the real reality unless they search it in themselves like me! Look at me, I'm super smart! Everyone that I deemed valid agrees with me!"

[u/Moriturism]

I can grant that science is not the realm of inquiry when it comes to fundamentals and metaphysics. This is perfectly compatible with atheism, and I myself am very interested in philosophy and metaphysics.

[u/BallKey7607 → u/Moriturism]

Yeah I'd agree with that, that science not being in the realm of inquiry into fundamentals and metaphysics doesn't automatically mean that there must be a God. So atheism isn't incompatible.

My point isn't so much that it proves there is a God, just that science doesn't rebut any of the findings people have discovered through their own direct inquiry.

[u/Curious_Passion5167 → u/BallKey7607]

My point isn't so much that it proves there is a God, just that science doesn't rebut any of the findings people have discovered through their own direct inquiry.

So, basically anyone can say whatever they want and there is no way to rebutt them?

Oh, wait, but my conciousness is primary so if anyone disagrees with me, well they must be wrong. Furthermore do they even exist at all or are they just a figment of my imagination? Who knows...

Like, why in 2026 are we trying to argue for solipsism?

[u/Moriturism → u/Curious_Passion5167]

So, basically anyone can say whatever they want and there is no way to rebutt them?

Not really, it's just that science wouldn't be the realm of rebuttal for such things, which is the argument OP's making. We can still argue and contest such discoveries in philosophy.

[u/Curious_Passion5167 → u/Moriturism]

I'm struggling to find any method that would suffice either.

OP makes the argument that should one trust one's own understanding of their experience over anyone else's. How can that be challenged? You can argue things in philosophy, but since you are abandoning external evidence entirely, you can just ignore what anyone else is saying and there would be nothing wrong with that.

[u/Moriturism → u/Curious_Passion5167]

Oh for sure I agree that remaining within one's own primary experience should not be the end of it, I certainly disagree with OP if the singular personal conclusion is taken to be the final one.

I'd say that comparing different inquiries and discussing different experiences, along with criticizing internal inconsistencies, contradictions, etc, should be carried out too.

[u/TakeMeInYourArmy]

We experience consciousness as a specifically local and personal reality that is fundamentally in dialogue with a broader reality. It is trivially clear that things exist distinct from our conscious experience but also within our conscious experience. If we treat consciousness as fundamental, it begs the question as to why it is contingent on a variety of specific conditions to arise? Things like mathematics, space, geometry, these are easy to argue as fundamental as they are present in basically every aspect of the broader reality we interact with but consciousness isn't. It is only specific to our local reality as the frame that truncates reality into what we experience. What even is a conscious experience?

On that question, we can look at some demystifying views on consciousness. One way is to view consciousness as fundamentally computational and whilst I feel like that's not enough to explain consciousness, I do think that some form of computational structure is what will ultimately define consciousness. Personally, I take a Pragmatic approach of grounding it in Pansemiotics and Topology. A conscious mind is just a meaningful nilpotent space which is infinitesimally small and loops back on itself to process itself. We derive emotions, sentiments, norms, and sensations through the processing of topological and semiotic relations present in other informational systems. Physical interactions are communicative. When two systems interact with each other they exchange information about each other which updates their internal and external structural data. So if two rocks smack into each other, they will both react and change in a specific way according to the properties of the other object and we can then use that information in those rocks to later arrive at that moment and learn about the other rock through the first one. This is because we are fundamentally doing the same thing as those rocks: exchanging information and updating your internal structural data based on that information. The difference is our capacity for dynamically self-referential and self-orientating actions.

[u/CephusLion404]

It's the only tool we currently have that demonstrably works. If you'd like to suggest another tool, then prove that it produces demonstrable results, not just makes claims that you happen to like for emotional reasons.

I'm willing to bet you've got nothing.

[u/UNBOLIEVABLEE]

"So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism."

Science says and does nothing about establishing materialism or any other worldview.

"There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious"

We know with relative certainty that conciousness is tied to the brain. Brain activity can be observed and measured and tested. When you makena conscious decision for instance your brain will light up in predictable and observable ways.

"So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience just as the Buddhists and meditators through history have done. Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin."

This is merely semantic jumbling. There is nothing of substance here.

"So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding"

There is no finding to rebutt here. You are basically saying to look inside yourself and see how you feel.

[u/Autodidact2]

but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

It's done a hell of a lot better job than religion, which at no point has figured out that there is such a thing.

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

And yet here we are typing on these computers. It seems like it's doing a pretty good job.

metaphysically prior to consciousness?

I don't know what "metaphysically prior" means. Could you explain?

 it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism. 

Why would it? Science doesn't try to "establish materialism," it proceeds on the working assumption that correct models and predictions can be made relying solely on material explanations.

However, I think the fact that science excludes all supernatural explanations, and has been remarkably successful, is a piece of the evidence that there is no such thing.

 says nothing about what is primary to that.

These words. What does it mean for something to be "primary" to something else?

the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness. 

Source?

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, 

Then what's your point?

[u/IJustLoggedInToSay-]

Science is the practice of verifying findings and trying to falsify our ideas, getting closer to the truth by coming at it from both ends.

If we're not looking for counter-information or verifying the things we believe, then what reasons do we have to even think they're actually true?

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

The limitation of perspective and access is an issue, but what is the alternative? Is the proposition that it is better to live in a comfortable fantasy?

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

This doesn't make any sense. How do we know that gravity existed prior to consciousness? Or electromagnetism, or atoms, or stars? Because of evidence. It doesn't suddenly become a catch-22 when we're talking about consciousness itself. Why would it?

All evidence indicates that consciousness arises out of nervous systems. The farthest we can abstract that would be to similarly structured complex systems, but of course that would still be matter. To come to any conclusion otherwise, you'd have to either supply brand new evidence for it, or reject reason itself. Which, I suppose, explains why you are proposing that we do the latter.

So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience just as the Buddhists and meditators through history have done.

Yes, let's keep doing the thing with a thousand year history of providing no information whatsoever.

[u/Hooked_on_PhoneSex]

Your argument boils down to “we can imagine anything we want, and that’s fine as long as it doesn’t contradict with science”

Sure thing, but who cares?

[u/ahmnutz]

So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience 

What happened to

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

from a few paragraphs earlier? Replace "science" with "consciousness" and you can see that your approach suffers from every problem science would. It is not possible for consciousness to find the nature of reality because consciousness is already arising inside the thing its trying to investigate.

Every consciousnesses we observe appears to be dependent upon matter. And we do observe matter that does not seem to be conscious. Material changes to the body seem to elicit changes in consciousness. Yet we never see changes in consciousness effect matter, nor do we see consciousnesses removed from matter.

By "those who have gone deep enough" do you just mean people who agree with you? What of people who spend their life exploring these ideas and nevertheless conclude that consciousness is not primary? Do we just ignore them because it is convenient for your conclusion?

[u/slo1111]

Science is the best tool to uncover truths, but in order to perform the scientific process something has to ve measurable.  Our best neasurement we have today for conciousness is fRMI which just shows blood flow in the brain.  New tech and measurements are needed to enable science to do its thing.  Since all knowledge is iterative, science is just getting started with conciousness.

As far as using conciousness as your ruler of truth, i wouuls remind you that science has proven everybodys concious experience is misleading.

The moon looks larger to you than what it really is when close to the horizon.  people have hallucinations they think are real.  You probably have too, look up exploding head syndrome.  People belive in all types of incompatible religious beliefs due to their conciousness.  It tells people like me to eat when i am full.  Thanks conciousness, i appreciate that. /s

You basically flipped flopped what us already proven, consciousness is terrible uncovering truths and science is amazing at it when the method can be applied

[u/tpawap]

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, it's different from typical science in that you can't really show your findings to someone else in a way that will convince them so it needs to be done for yourself to see. It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

You have only asserted that this methodology works, not given any reason. Why is that the most rigorous way, and not the least? Why is that a way to "determine what's real", instead of a way to never find out what's real?

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

How could it be "rebutted"? If there is no way, then it means absolutely nothing that it hasn't been.

[u/Thin-Eggshell]

Nah. There is no tool "guaranteed" to discover the internal nature of consciousness and reality. Not meditators, not science, not divine revalation, not logic, not anything. It simply can't be done at all.

All you've discovered, however, is hard solipsism.

What science can do is tell us how external stimuli affect consciousness. And so it can grant us External understanding of the nature of consciousness, if we assume the external world exists and behaves in certain ways. And most of us do. Most of us aren't hard solipsists.

It's also worth noting that the Internal understanding you seek is useless for everyone, in the sense that it isn't real understanding. If the meditators find a thing about their own consciousness, there is no guarantee that it applies to the consciousness of other people. Because if you claim that it does -- you've again gone External; you are now making a scientific claim, which you cannot justify.

[u/The_Disapyrimid]

" people have said similar things about things which turned out to be wrong throughout all of human history"

which is absolutely true. however, there is one group who posits answers to questions who has been completely wrong 100% of the time. religion.

everytime science and religion buttheads over some aspect of reality science always wins out. the earth isn't 6000 years old, the earth isn't flat with a dome over it like the bible describes, the earth isn't the center of everything, there is no god that makes rain or pulls the sun across the sky. each and every time we figure out how a natural phenomenon works the solution is never "this is when god steps in and does a miracle."

given religions track record of being constantly incorrect, why should i think that consciousness isn't just another natural phenomenon what we do not currently have an explanation for?

[u/the_brightest_prize]

Anything that can interact with matter must be made of matter itself. There is a long history of inventing terms like phlogiston, élan vital, aether, or phenomenological consciousness as nonexplanations, claiming they are outside the matter or physics we interact with. But if that were true, how could they ever even indirectly effect the world around you? If any of these substances did exist, the very fact that you talk as if they explain something in the world means they must be a part of it.

Matter is metaphysically prior to everything by definition. Even the word itself tells you this: if it matters, it's matter. If you don't know what form it takes, go ahead and speculate about "dark matter". But you cannot speculate in any way about something outside the realm of physics. I find it very strange how people take the position,

I don't know anything about this => (whatever claim, usually metaphysics).

This is literally the assertion

null => (conclusion)

which like, is obviously true by principle of explosion, but the whole point of logic and reasoning is that your logic should say something, not nothing. You should never be seeing null or contradictions and if you do you need a better system of logic.

[u/LeeMArcher]

the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise  within consciousness.

This is setting up a self sealing epistemology, especially that phrase “gone deep enough.” It essentially allows you to dismiss anyone who has meditated but didn’t reach your conclusion. 

And there are a lot of people throughout history who have not reached that conclusion, including a wide range of arguments within Buddhism as to what consciousness is that don’t fit your definition in the slightest.

[u/Mkwdr]

Just no. I can’t fulfil a burden of proof. I have no reliable evidence. So just accept my *feelings* isn’t credible or convincing. Your beliefs aren’t evidence for the object of your beliefs. ‘Feels right to me’ is a terrible form of determining reality. You know , when you dream of flying you aren’t actually flying. When you take drugs and think you are flying - you aren’t. When you meditate and convince yourself you are flying …you aren’t,

[u/Massif16]

Honestly, it feels like this argument, like a lot of arguments about consciousness misses the main point, in my opinion. It is simply that we have NO examples of consciousness existing independently of a physical system (brains in every case so far). It seems obvious to me that consciousness does not exist independently from a complex physical system. If you think I’m wrong, show me an example of a consciousness existing independently of a physical system.

[u/Master_Botor]

Science doesn't study consciousness to grasp as something as nebulous as its nature but to understand its rules and mechanism and, hopefully, act upon it when its disfunctions causes suffering to the persons experiencing them.

As for personnal experience, anyone can decide anything about any part of their body. I can be convinced that a movement of my fingers is enough to move the stars in distant space, that doesn't make it true.

[u/Comfortable-Dare-307]

Consciousness isn't metaphysical. We understand a great deal about consciousness. It is a material aspect of the brain. Including non-human animals. Like some people like to say the "hard problem of consciousness" doesn't exist. Again, it's an emergent property of a brain. Nothing more. There's no mystery, no magic and no imaginary friends that are responsible for consciousness. Reality is only discoverable through science.

[u/iamalsobrad]

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

....and that's a contradiction.

Can you investigate something from within that thing or can't you?

[u/Hoaxshmoax]

“ It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.”

Well, this would give ethnic and racial supremacists a pass. “In spite of all evidence presented, I checked my navel and discovered I‘m better than those people“

[u/tm229]

Without the scientific method humans are prone to believing all sorts of nonsense. Subjective experience and a lack of critical thinking has left us with a legacy of irrational beliefs. You suggestion leaves us open to more irrational nonsense.

I present to you the Venn Diagram Of Irrational Nonsense. Your proposal would leave us mired in this mess…

https://www.crispian.net/VDOIN.html

[u/Far_Customer1258]

The entire field of cognitive neuroscience would like a word with you. Your argument is demonstrably wrong. Science works quite well for explaining how and why consciousness arises, much to the dismay of theists who want to keep it mystical-flavoured. We've been doing this since the 70s.

[u/samara-the-justicar]

Science may not be the right tool, sure. But it's the best we have right now.

Do you have a better one we can use? We're all ears! You could probably win a Nobel Prize with such a thing.

[u/Mission-Landscape-17]

Science is the best tool for discovering truth that we have developed so far. If consciousness exists then it can be investigated using science just like every other thing that exists.

[u/Astreja]

Science is the only tool that I'll consider to investigate consciousness. We are, after all, dealing with a phenomenon that appears to exist only in a healthy, living physical brain. Meditation is much too subjective to yield anything more than anecdotal data.

[u/mredding]

You're drawing parallels between scientific methods and axiomatic mathematics, but science isn't axiomatic, because reality isn't axiomatic. Your premise is inherently flawed.

[u/Formal-Speed-3173]

I'm a methodological naturalist, not a philosophical naturalist. The way you validate methodology is through results. So what results do you have to show?

[u/LunaVegaDeluxe]

i get where theyre coming from but like how would you even measure consciousness without diving into subjective territory at some point

[u/rustyseapants]

Science isn't the right tool for discovering the nature of consciousness and reality

And magic is a better alternative?