Exercises in Natural Philosophy: The Physical Origin of Consciousness
Keywords: natural philosophy
Scientific method requires the use of empirically tested observations to arrive at verifiable results. Evidence obtained from introspection or personal experience is not normally admitted to a scientific theory except historically in the case of natural philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant. However, in these exercises I will revive practices from the past by reinstating the philosophical principle of dualism. Dualism is the idea that there is an external world of appearances that is the subject of science and an internal world independent of experience that is outside the possibility of experiment. Because dualism is a universal principle it can be used to comment on problems from quantum mechanics to cosmology. Specific topics of discussion will include evolution, human consciousness, and galactic structure.
