“Science” of the Mind-Body Debate:

A Controversy across the Millennia (Part I)

Science is Finished: It Has Been Communicated

From the Atomists to Descartes, this controversy has stood the test of time. What is it
about the subject of Consciousness and the Mind-Body controversy which so openly defies
Sir Mark Walport’s statement ‘Science is not finished until it is communicated…’ (Yeo
2013). After all there have been many debates, studies, experiments, and books written
about the science of consciousness and the mind-body issue. This “science” has, therefore,
been communicated extensively and yet there seems to be no sign of it being anywhere
near finished.
But perhaps this was precisely the point? Certainly, if we take this statement in a vacuum it
is patently absurd and would call into question the level of credibility owed any person
making such a faulty and absolute statement. But we are not in a vacuum and there is
almost certainly more to this statement than what first we read. Most specifically there is
the foremost pressing question of “What is Science?” After all, if we desire to know
whether “it is finished” by being communicated, we should first know what “It” is…

Setting Up the Mind-Body Debate

The controversy of mind-body was long in the making, and as far as records of knowledge
in the Western world of philosophy show, it started with the Atomists (before the time of
Plato) who posited the idea of two types of qualities existing for all matter in the universe.
According to Professor Simon Werett of UCL in his lecture number 3, part 2 of History of
Science: Antiquity to Enlightenment, the Atomists believed the human senses gave you
secondary qualities of things whilst reason gave you the primary qualities (Werett, 2020).
In this era, it was the Atomists who defined what science was by establishing the
boundaries of their scientific activity with secondary qualities existing on one side and
primary qualities on the other, using ‘reason’ as a demarcation line between them. This
‘reason’ of the Atomists was the precursor to Aristotelian logic and this ‘demarcation’, a
term explained by Thomas Gieryn in his paper ‘Boundary Work and the Demarcation of
Science from Non-Science’ helped further establish their own ideologies as genuine
pursuits of knowledge of the philosophy of nature from those which were not.
It was also at this point the rift was beginning and the “science of consciousness” started to
divide ever so slowly away from other sciences. This divide was extended by Plato, student
of Socrates, who expanded the theory of two qualities to entail two separate and distinct
worlds containing these qualities. In the same lecture Professor Simon Werett conveys
Plato as a philosopher of nature who believed in two worlds, where one was a messy world
because of the senses and human experiences involved, and the other world which was
orderly and perfect; a world we could know through reason alone as it consisted of
‘essences’ undetectable to our physical senses (Werett, 2020).
Here Plato seems to be making the argument for a material vs non-material or, dualist
state of nature extending to humanity as well as he is providing a concept of our senses as
being separate from our faculty of reason, and of those sense being possibly faulty. He is
also establishing the much clearer boundary work of science surrounding the controversy
of materialism and dualism for the future of science. He communicates the “science” of
the time by founding a school in order to communicate this natural philosophy. This
school we now refer to as “The Platonic Academy” was known as the “Academy’ in ancient
Athens outside the city named Akademeia.
On the manner of instruction relating to the Academy, Greek science popularizer Nick
Kampouris had the following to say: ‘The teaching methods used by Plato, including both
lectures and seminars, focused on his instructions but dialogue between teachers and
students played a vital role as well.’ (Kampouris, 2018). This would indicate, while the main
method for communication of science by Plato was the ‘deficit model’ as proposed by
Lewenstein in his paper entitled ‘Models of Public Communication of Science &
Technology’, there also existed a dialogue or ‘participation model’ where open debate on
the subjects was encouraged and feedback on the issues was gathered and evaluated.
So, then we arrive back to the question, “Was this science?” Without being whiggish about
science I believe it was scientific activity according to its time and place. Gieryn, states ‘…
characteristics of science are examined not as inherent or possibly unique, but as part of
the ideological efforts by scientist to distinguish their work and its products from non-
scientific intellectual activities.’ (Gieryn, 1983). In this sense they (Platonic Students) were
certainly working toward establishing their ideologies as products of science and would
likely have viewed their work as separate and distinct from non-scientific intellectual
activities even though by today’s standard of science some might disagree.
One such person would likely be Karl Popper who required falsifiability as a means of
determining a boundary between science and non-science. According to Popper ‘Every
"good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a
theory forbids, the better it is. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is
non-scientific’ (Popper, 1962).

But what if Popper got it wrong? What if one of the very qualities of this “science of
consciousness” was that it could not be made to be falsifiable? Or at least not falsifiable by
conventional means of empirical induction? What if that falsifiability had to occur
subjectively? What could be used to ensure this subjective form of falsifiability?
Fortunately for our paper, and the reader, we are not at the most troubling point of all this
controversy and thus far there is only one thing certain at this point…This “science”,
although well communicated, was far from being finished.

The Middle Earth of the Mind-Body Debate

The next few centuries held further excitement of the mind-body debate being briefly
touched upon by Islamic Scholars such as Al-Kindi and Al-Haytham in and around 800 AD
before the next big movement in the separation of “science” from “non-science”. Further
boundary work in dualist states of nature came around the time of the Scientific
Renaissance 1540 to 1690 where the chasm between two rival methods of science
stemmed from two different camps of philosophy.
On one side was the experimental philosophers such as Sir Francis Bacon and Galileo
Galilei and on the other was the opposed camp of mechanistic philosophy by René
Descartes. Descartes, using reasoning and logic —the boundaries for scientific activity
developed by the Atomists, Plato, and Aristotle—argued the existence of a non-material
mind through a synthesis of information supported with deductive logic in a very detailed
analysis entitled ‘Meditations on First Philosophy.’
The audience of Descartes Meditations were ‘…those “irreligious people” who only have
faith in mathematics and will not believe in the soul’s immortality without a mathematical
demonstration of it…’ according to Dr. Justin Skirry, Chair of Philosophy & Religion
Department at Nebraska-Wesleyan University in the USA.
This is an important moment to return to a previous question raised in this essay on the
ability of such issues to be reconciled with mathematical demonstrations as Galileo based
his absolute belief in the affirmative to this question. According to him the language of the
universe was ‘è scritto in lingua matematica’ (Galileo, 1623) roughly translated to mean,
written in mathematics, and science was that which could be experimented, observed,
calculated, and recorded for others to repeat. It was not something that could be or
should be evaluated in qualitative natures but rather quantitative natures.
Descartes did not seem to be comfortable with this as the final answer to the founding of
his universal scientific system. In fact, he dedicates an entire meditation to the error of a
priori vs a posteriori arguments where he shows the fallacy in relying strictly on
observational method of inductive reasoning to justify correct theories of nature:
There are two different ideas of the sun which I find within me. One of them
[a posteriori]…makes the sun appear very small. The other idea is based on
astronomical reasoning [a priori]…shows the sun to be several times larger
than earth. Obviously both these ideas cannot resemble the [true nature of]
the sun…and reason persuades me that the idea which seems to have
emanated most directly from the sun itself has in fact no resemblance to it at
all (Cottingham, 2017).
While Descartes method of a priori argument here was able to defend its ability to provide
evidence, and while it worked well for this subjective, qualitative science regarding the
dualist state of nature and the non-physicality of the mind, the a posteriori experimental
method of empirical observation-based science did seem to be favored and to work very
well for Bacon and Galileo concerning general reality. However, Galileo seemed
determined to use Bacon’s experimental method to the detriment of everything subjective
or non-material as well as to the detriment of this new inductive reasoning-based science
Bacon was alleged to have created.
Whereas Bacon started ‘…by first performing a large number of experiments, and then [by]
allowing the law inherent in the experimental results to crystallise out...’ Galileo ‘…used
experiment to verify a relation that he had deduced mathematically from more or less self-
evident suppositions’ (Mays, 1974).
However, there is a danger in self-evident suppositions and Descartes proved this where
he referred to them as “judgements” that did not come by ‘the light of reason’ and which
could appear true but nonetheless were not true as in the earlier example of the sun.
Further, he disagreed with Plato on the assertion that such mistakes were because of the
senses but rather were because of incorrect judgement within the mind. He explains this
mind apparatus as being a ‘faculty of judgement’ which ‘…would [not] ever enable [him] to
go wrong while using it correctly’ (Cottingham, 2017).
In this sense Galileo and his “science” leave very little room for inclusion of science of the
nature belonging to Descartes. While Galileo’s blossoming scientific method, went a self-
reinforcing route disguised as value free objective science which seems to me to be more
concrete but less robust, Descartes went in another direction of “science” I believe to be
more robust and less concrete, known by most as the repellent word metaphysics. Yet it
was this work in metaphysics and as a philosopher he was so especially known, specifically
by way of his quote “I think, therefore I am.”
This quote by Descartes was at the heart of the mind-body debate where he takes a
direction toward philosophy and metaphysics heavily influenced by St. Augustine’s work
entitled ‘De Trinitate’ regarding the mind as a separate and distinct non-physical entity
possessing a quasi-physical property described as a type of “seeing”. This seeing of the
mind described by St. Augustine (1991) was one which ‘…sees such truths in a kind of non-
bodily light that is sui generis, just as our eyes of flesh see all these things that lie around
us in bodily light…’ and was referred to by Descartes as ‘intuition’, that originates from a ‘…
clear and attentive mind which proceeds solely from the light of reason…’ as a property of
the mind (Cottingham, 2017).
This significant communication by Descartes sets forth a clear non-physicality of the mind
with an ability (seeing or intuition) which seems to, for the moment, lay far beyond our
current ability to experiment on and ultimately prove by current scientific process we
know and used today as established by Galileo. Point of fact, this was one of the biggest
issues for Descartes as he believed ‘…there must be a general science which explains all the
points that can be raised concerning order and measure irrespective of the subject-matter’
(Cottingham, 2017).
Galileo seemed more concerned about proving more objective seeming sciences
concretely and perhaps for many aspects of nature this is sufficient. However, this one-
size-fits all scientific method does not work for all sciences, especially those whose
attributes are subjective or relative as quantum mechanics seems to demonstrate.
Perhaps quantum mechanics is the demarcation line between the sciences of objective and
subjective nature as science moves from deterministic to probabilistic?
Certainly, at that time there was no possible deterministic mathematical solution by which
this argument of intuition or ‘light of reason’ could be made or defined. Here we arrive to
the crux of this essay and in response to an early question this is the pivotal piece. How
could we use ‘the light of reason’ as a means to deliver us falsifiability? It was a ‘feeling’
Descartes was discussing and in the business of science as Galileo envisioned, this had no
place in it, as distinct and vivid as that feeling might be or could be described.
If Descartes were to be correct, if he were to build a scientific method for the universal
scientific system, all of the logical arguments which could be made a priori, as well as all
those which could be made a posteriori would have to be included. These tools of Logic,
both deduction and induction, would each have weight as valid proof, especially when
such logic came from the ‘light of reason’. But how could one know the light of reason,
and further, how could one know when that light of reason was true or whether it was
imagined within the recesses of the mind? Even if one could know these things and
attribute meaningful values to them would it ever be science?
If it could be science would it be finished once it is communicated? At this point in the
essay there is no longer any value in continuing to ring this bell. Science has shown itself to
have boundaries shaped by scientists, and those scientists are shown to be filled with their
own values as opposed to being absolutely objective. So then certainly the meaning
behind this message from Sir Mark Walport was not as shallow as the ink in the words on
this paper. That is correct, there certainly was some deeper meaning to this message
‘Science is not finished until it is communicated’ (Yeo 2013).
To glean this message we have to look further to the rest of his statement and such
research reveals the remainder of this quote to include him saying ‘…communication to
wider audiences is part of the job of being a scientist, and so how you communicate is
absolutely vital’ (Yeo 2013). He is quite correct. The way you communicate is indeed vital.
It seems he was communicating a directive regarding the process of science as a cycle and
the way in which he was doing it was succinct. His words were not intended on setting
specific finishing-line boundaries for science, but rather, were concerned with directives
for the scientists on how to be better at the science cycle in general.

A Summary and Pretext to Part II

Upon coming to a close of this paper there may be more questions which remain for
further inquiry regarding not only the several different eras through this essay, but possibly
more context and detail we should gather for understanding the mind-body debate
ongoing over the millennia in relation to these time periods, and from the periods of
Descartes to present day. To the question of whether or not this “science” is a science, and
whether or not it is finished I say: This depends on the people who advocate for it or
against it; the era and information available during that period; as well as the methods and
techniques available for developing and communicating knowledge and establishing its
boundaries.
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