The Blind spot cogitations (Copy)

In the book, the authors set out to “recover the deep connection between science and human experience” that was affected by a set of conditions that have culminated into what they refer to as the Blind Spot. The Blind Spot as defined by the authors is “a demolition of concrete experience through the elevation of ascending cycles of abstractions” situated in how classical physics created the ontology of nature.

              The faulty scientific frameworks posited by classical physics upholds an idealization of reality which fundamentally relies on misguided notions such as the bifurcation of nature, orthodox physicalism and the degradation of lived experience as being “just sensations”, “just psychological states” and trivialized to “just epiphenomenon”.   The bifurcation of nature artificially separates objective reality from subjective reality and falsely assumes that absolute knowledge exists and can be extracted through mathematical abstractions rather than direct subjective experience.  Four main pathologies of the Blind Spot were woven in throughout the book; the amnesia of experience, surreptitious substitution, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness and the reification of structural invariants. 

              While reading about these pathologies, I found myself curious about how the framework espoused by classical physics may have influenced the birth of Freud’s psychoanalytic method in the 1890’s. Freud, Jung and Whitehead all being contemporaries appear to be holding different viewpoints on the nature of consciousness. Freud located consciousness within the individual which is different from how Jung’s collective unconscious and Whitehead’s Process Relational Ontology viewed the nature of consciousness.  In Freud’s psychoanalytic method, the ideal analytic stance was to be objective and neutral, to revealing low affective and somatic information to the analysand to reduce interference with the analysand’s psychological exploration. This idealized objective stance reminded me of the role of the scientist in the scientific workshop and the amnesia of experience. The amnesia of experience happens “when we forget that direct experience is the implicit departure point and constant requirement of creating knowledge.” 

              I would like to summarize a few of the primary ways that the authors contend to move beyond the blind spot. First, “we must inscribe ourselves back into the scientific narrative as creators.” To achieve this, we need to recognize the primacy of direct experience and develop methods that integrate our lived experience in the production of scientific knowledge. I am particularly struck by the ideas set forth by enactive cognitive science (ECS). ECS prioritizes “embodied experience as the unavoidable reference point for understanding the mind”. “Enactive cognitive theorists embrace the irreducible primacy of direct experience, and it strives to create a science of perception that does not bifurcate nature”. ( p202)

              Another approach to moving beyond the Blind Spot is to recognize the primacy of embodiment. The authors suggest that there here is no way to step out of embodiment. “Even meta-awareness, the ability to mentally attend to and monitor your awareness, originates developmentally from your having internalized an outside perspective on yourself when you were an infant interacting with others.’(p189)

              The primacy of consciousness, “we cannot step outside of consciousness because everything we investigate, including consciousness and its relation to the brain, resides within the horizon of consciousness.” (p1866) Consciousness is the horizon of the world’s disclosure, it is the precondition of the world’s disclosure. Most scientists do not look at consciousness this way. Instead, they think of consciousness as just another phenomenon in this world and assume that it can be distinguished from other phenomenon. Consciousness is the horizon within which any phenomenon we can talk about or point to is present. Merleau-Ponty writes that “ the body is the vehicle of being in the world. The body is the medium of the world’s disclosure via consciousness”. (Phenomenology  Of Perception, 2013)

              In closing, I will highlight specific points from the author’s discussion on neurophenomenology. Neurophenomenology is based on the idea that a deep investigation of consciousness requires working with individuals who are skillful at meta-awareness of experience. It involves using precise qualitative methods of interviewing individuals about fine grain characteristics of their tacit experience.

Frank, A., Gleiser, M., & Thompson, E. (2024). The blind spot: why science cannot ignore human experience. The MIT Press.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of perception (; D. A. Landes, Trans.). Routledge.