Experimential Methodology in Consciousness Research

Abstract

Consciousness research of the last few decades approaches consciousness using classical research methodology, namely, as if consciousness was an object similar to quantum fields or elementary particles. This approach is not able to grasp the subjective aspect of consciousness, namely, one has the ability to observe, to be conscious of how one’s mind is creating a scientific model of consciousness. Experiential methodology, on the other hand, focuses on the subject which is observing the mind working on the model of consciousness. It allows you to experience the source of the observation, which seems is consciousness itself. Consciousness research requires the enlargement of scientific research methodology in which experience has the same scientific validity as the measurement. We cannot directly measure the experience of the source of our observation, however, we can experience it and our experience is real. Conceiving a subjective experience as “non-scientific” is the main obstacle of today’s science because it is excluding “the observer - the one who has the experience” out of the scientific picture of the world. The aim of this article is to include human experience as data whose value is of the same ontological importance as data obtained by measurement.