[Neuroscience] Neurophenomenology

[microsansfil]

Hi all,

Neurophenomenology a scientific research program initiated by Francisco Varela Is it considered a scientific approach ?

On NCBI which is a National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information.



If it is not, what argument disprove that it is a scientific approach ?

Patrick

 

[Evo]

To be discussed here the paper has to be published in a journal accepted by us. It cannot be mostly philosophy. Varela does both, so you need to be careful.

 

[Dian Cecht]

From your link:

"Neurophenomenological (NP) methods integrate objective and subjective data in ways that retain the statistical power of established disciplines (like cognitive science) while embracing the value of first-person reports of experience."

Using first-person reports is common in psychology, do you consider that to be a "scientific approach"?

 

[Pythagorean]

This might be of interest to you. It's based on genetics rather than neuroscience, but includes a phenomenological component.

Does a unique olfactory genome imply a unique olfactory world?

The team then explored the effect of naturally occurring functional variations in olfactory receptor genes on odorant perception in an ethnically diverse human population. They discovered that different haplotypes of a given receptor subtype conferred different perceived valence and intensity for a given odorant. Specifically, haplotypic variation in the olfactory receptor subtype OR10G4 allowed them to predict ~15% of the variance in perceived intensity and ~10% of the perceived pleasantness for the odorant guaiacol, which is typically described as 'smoky'. Thus, by providing evidence for variability across individuals at the level of peripheral olfactory processing and by linking the in vitro functional differences with differences in human olfactory perception, this study supports the notion of a 'private nose' for each person10, 11, reflecting that person's specific genetic makeup.

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/full/nn.3608.html

[10] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12730696
[11] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17873857

 

[madness]

Hi all,

Neurophenomenology a scientific research program initiated by Francisco Varela Is it considered a scientific approach ?

On NCBI which is a National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information.
If it is not, what argument disprove that it is a scientific approach ?

Patrick

I think its debatable whether this approach is scientific. There is no general consensus on whether the hard problem of consciousness can be addressed scientifically, or on which approaches to solving the problem are scientific.

Even worse, there is no general consensus on what "scientific" even means (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem). Nevertheless, a good starting point to judge whether a theory is scientific is to ask whether it is falsifiable. Based on the wikipedia page, I can't figure out enough about this neurophenomenology approach to answer that.