Philosopher Philip Goff on Galileo Excluding Consciousness From Science

Episode Summary

Main Topics Discussed

• The historical roots of modern science's exclusion of consciousness, particularly focusing on **Galileo's influence**.
• Galileo's philosophical shift: moving qualitative properties (colors, smells, tastes) from the physical world into the **consciousness of the observer** to make science purely mathematical.
• The **limitations of physical science** (including neuroscience) in explaining the subjective "qualities" of experience (qualia) using purely quantitative language.
• The argument that the success of physical science is **ironically due to its narrow focus** and the deliberate exclusion of consciousness.
• The "hard problem" of consciousness: explaining why certain brain activities lead to specific subjective experiences.
• The need for a **new philosophical worldview** (like panpsychism) to integrate consciousness fully into science.
• A comparison of three main philosophical stances on consciousness: **materialism, panpsychism, and dualism**.

Key Insights & Memorable Moments

• Goff highlights that Galileo's 1623 decision to make mathematics the language of science necessitated a philosophical maneuver to strip the physical world of qualities, leaving only quantifiable properties.
• He emphasizes that physical science has thrived precisely because Galileo gave it a "narrow specific focus" by instructing to "just put consciousness on one side."
• The difficulty of explaining the subjective "redness of a red experience" to a blind neuroscientist through scientific theory alone serves as a vivid illustration of science's descriptive and explanatory limitations regarding qualia.
• The debate between Goff and Rogan frequently touches upon the difference between **correlation** (brain activity goes along with experience) and **explanation** (why it produces that specific subjective experience).
• Goff posits that materialism is "incoherent" because it cannot account for the qualities of experience within its purely quantitative framework.

Notable Quotes or Revelations

• "The scientific paradigm we've been operating in for the last 500 years was designed by Galileo to exclude consciousness."
• "An equation can't capture the the redness of a red experience."
• "Galileo strips the physical world of its qualities and after he's done that all that's left are the purely quantitative properties size shape location motion properties that you can capture in mathematical geometry."
• "The irony is it's done so well precisely because it was designed to exclude consciousness."
• "If we want to bring consciousness fully into science we need a new world view... to bring together what Galileo separated... and that's what panpsychism does."
• "I think in principle a neuroscientific theory cannot explain the qualities of our experience."
• On the three options for consciousness: "Either matter is a consciousness is explained in terms of matter... all matter is explained in terms of consciousness... or we've got a third option... they're just they're two separate things."

Overall Themes

• **The Philosophical Underpinnings of Science:** How historical philosophical decisions (like Galileo's) continue to shape scientific inquiry and its blind spots.
• **The Nature of Reality:** The fundamental question of whether consciousness or matter is more primary, and how this impacts our understanding of the universe.
• **The Hard Problem of Consciousness:** The challenge of explaining subjective experience (qualia) within a scientific framework that traditionally focuses on objective, quantifiable phenomena.
• **Limitations of Reductionism:** The argument that reducing complex qualitative experiences solely to quantitative physical processes fails to capture the full reality of consciousness.
• **The Need for Paradigm Shift:** The call for a new scientific worldview that can bridge the gap between the physical and the phenomenal.