Edge #556: A Post-Galilean Paradigm - A Conversation with Philip Goff

News from Edge To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves. September 24, 2019 THE THIRD CULTURE [A Post-Galilean Paradigm]( A Conversation with Philip Goff We're now going through a phase of history where people are so blown away at the success of physical science and the wonderful technology it's produced that they've forgotten its philosophical underpinnings. They've forgotten its inherent limitations. If we want a science of consciousness, we need to move beyond Galileo. We need to move to what I call a post-Galilean paradigm. We need to rethink what science is. That doesn't mean we stop doing physical science or we do physical science differently—I'm not here to tell physical scientists how to do their jobs. It does, however, mean that it's not the full story. We need physical science to encompass a more expansive conception of the scientific method. We need to adopt a worldview that can accommodate both the quantitative data of physical science and the qualitative reality of consciousness. That's essentially the problem. Fortunately, there is a way forward. There is a framework that could allow us to make progress on this. It's inspired by certain writings from the 1920s of the philosopher Bertrand Russell and the scientist Arthur Eddington, who is incidentally the first scientist to confirm general relativity after the First World War. I'm inclined to think that these guys did in the 1920s for the science of consciousness what Darwin did in the 19th century for the science of life. It's a tragedy of history that this was completely forgotten about for a long time for various historical reasons we could talk about. But, it's recently been rediscovered in the last five or ten years in academic philosophy, and it's causing a lot of excitement and interest. PHILIP GOFF is a philosopher and consciousness researcher at Durham University, UK, and author of Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (forthcoming, 2019). [ [Continue...]( ] Edge Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit private operating foundation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. [EDGE.ORG]( John Brockman, Editor and Publisher; Russell Weinberger, Associate Publisher; Nina Stegeman, Associate Editor Copyright (c) 2019 by Edge Foundation, Inc., 260 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10001. All Rights Reserved. --------------------------------------------------------------- Visit [edge.org]( "Fabulous" —The New York Times • "Thrilling" —Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung • "Wonderful" —The Wall Street Journal • "Fantastically Stimulating" —BBC Radio 4 • "Astounding" —The Boston Globe • "Splendidly enlightened" —The Independent • "Audacious" —La Vanguardia • "Brilliant" —The Sunday Times • "Enthralling" —The Daily Mail • "Exhilarating" —The Evening Standard • "Stunning" —New Scientist • "Enjoyable" —Salon • "Provocative" —La Stampa • "Marvelous" —Prospect • "Awesome" —Wired • "The brightest minds in the known universe" —Vanity Fair • "A lavish cerebral feast" —The Atlantic • "An intellectual treasure trove" —San Francisco Chronicle • "The world's smartest website" —The Guardian --------------------------------------------------------------- Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](