Philosopher Philip Goff on Galileo Excluding Consciousness From Science

Who is Philosopher Philip Goff on Galileo Excluding Consciousness From Science?

Taken from JRE 1739 w/Philip Goff:

Topics and Timestamps

• 01Philip Goff explores how Galileo's scientific revolution excluded consciousness from the domain of science, creating a methodological blind spot
• 02The modern scientific method deliberately ignores subjective experience and inner mental states as valid subjects of study
• 03Consciousness became viewed as either non-physical and separate from science or as something that doesn't really exist in any meaningful way
• 04This Galilean move allowed physics to advance rapidly but left the hard problem of consciousness unsolved for centuries
• 05Goff argues we need to reconsider whether consciousness should have been excluded from science in the first place
• 06The split between physical science and mental experience has created fundamental philosophical problems that persist today
• ▶Goff introduces Galileo's exclusion of consciousness from science0:00:00
• ▶Discussion of how the scientific revolution succeeded by ignoring subjective experience0:08:45
• ▶Explanation of the hard problem of consciousness and why it persists0:18:30
• ▶Goff argues consciousness shouldn't have been excluded from scientific inquiry0:32:15
• ▶Implications for modern neuroscience and artificial intelligence0:47:00

The Show

Philip Goff joins Joe Rogan to discuss one of the most consequential decisions in the history of science: Galileo's exclusion of consciousness from the scientific enterprise. The conversation centers on how this methodological choice shaped everything that came after in Western science and philosophy.

Goff explains that Galileo made a pragmatic decision to focus on what could be measured, quantified, and mathematically modeled. This meant stripping away subjective experience, qualia, and the inner life of the mind from the domain of legitimate scientific inquiry. Colors, sounds, tastes, and feelings weren't real properties of the external world but merely subjective impressions generated by our brains. This move was brilliantly successful for studying the physical universe and generated the entire scientific revolution.

The problem, according to Goff, is that we never really solved the consciousness question afterward. We just pushed it aside. By treating consciousness as either an illusion or a purely non-physical phenomenon separate from material science, we created an impossible philosophical situation. Either consciousness doesn't actually exist (which seems absurd given that we experience it directly), or it exists outside the laws of physics entirely (which creates its own logical problems).

Goff challenges the assumption that consciousness must be excluded for science to work. He suggests that maybe our science is incomplete because we decided to ignore half of reality. This doesn't mean retreating to mysticism or abandoning the scientific method, but rather expanding our conception of what science can investigate. The hard problem of consciousness persists because we're still operating under rules established in the 17th century when our understanding of physics, biology, and the mind was radically different.

The conversation touches on how this fundamental exclusion has ripple effects through contemporary philosophy, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. We're trying to build thinking machines while still operating under the assumption that consciousness is somehow separate from or reducible to mere computation. Goff suggests that rethinking Galileo's original move might be necessary for actually understanding mind, consciousness, and intelligence in a complete way.

Best Quotes