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Abstract:
When physics reduces color to a wavelength (or more
accurately, to tristimulus values) the loss seems slight. Whether
a human visual system is registering red, or an electronic device
detects 630nm radiation, is of little consequence to the science
of physics. For that matter the electromagnetic radiation being
studied may well be outside the visible region of the spectrum
entirely. Thus the qualitative experience of color in humans is
purely incidental to the discipline of physics. This situation is
emphatically not the case for the science of human consciousness.
The phenomena at the center of study are precisely the phenomena
of conscious experience. They cannot be replaced or reduced to
more material mechanisms without doing violence to the subject
itself. One could even go so far as to state that while the
neural correlates of conscious experience may be interesting,
they are incidental to consciousness studies. Physics aspires to
study the physical universe and its laws independent of human
experience. Consciousness studies, by definition, must be
concerned with conscious experience.
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