Is Science Blind to Human Experience? Rethinking Life, Mind, the Universe and Meaning | Adam Frank
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What early experiences sparked Adam Frank’s interest in the “blind spot” of science?
Adam, thank you so much for joining me. It's such a pleasure to finally host you. I'm a big fan of The Blind Spot. It's one of my favorite books. So firstly, thank you for that.
Oh, Devin, thank you very much. I need to also watch some of your stuff. I'm I'm happy to be on. I'm sure we're gonna have a good conversation.
Yeah, no, it's it's going to be fun, man. There's so much to discuss. I think let's start off by exploring the very essence of the blind spot. I mean, you fell in love with astronomy at the age of five, I think it was. And we're very similar in that regard because it's the one field I always loved, always enjoyed. For you, when you look back, what part of that early experience do you think was actually planting a seed for the blind spot.
Yeah, that's interesting because, you know, as I like to say, I'm a uh I'm a lapsed Platonist, right? When I first started, you know, learning about astronomy and astrophysics, there were there was that idea, the Platonic ideal. I was also, you know, learning about philosophy, obviously a little bit later. But still, the idea of like that kind of you know, perfect knowledge of the universe um was so compelling uh as a kid that you could, you know, that you could have there were that there was something in the world that you could know that was solid and enduring and eternal, right? Because, you know, growing up I had, you know, my my circumstances growing up, my family was quite poor. I was I grew up in a neighborhood where like, you know, I was getting my butt kicked every day um for a variety of reasons we don't need to go into, but you know, your standard sort of like, you know, American story circa 19, you know, sixty-five or whatever, with you know, the various ethnicities and such.
Um, so uh, you know, life was kind of hard in some sense. And so, you know, this this dream of uh perfect knowledge, you know, some to hold on to really held you know it was kind of you know had it had as i still i still think it does there's a quasi-religious kind of you know uh appeal to it but even then i just you know experienced I was having experiences, you know, that just sort of you kind of made me feel like this purely rational story wasn't enough.
How does the guest describe the mind‑body problem beyond traditional dualism?
So, you know, I wouldn't have admitted it to myself then. Um, but and he actually know how it expressed itself was comic books. Like I was a huge Marvel fan. And the idea of like, you know, these superheroes, you know, channeling cosmic forces. I think there was, you know, I mean, I'm I wouldn't be the first person to say that m Marvel has this mythology in it that is, you know, that sort of uh co ops or does its own version of of those kinds of impulses. You know, what you might say spiritual impulses or whatever. Um So yeah, anyway, so that was that that somehow buried in there while I was, you know, Mr. Rationalist, science can explain everything, there was a hint that there's just always more. I was having experiences.
I have this one really early experience of Uh just being like a kid in front of a tree. There was like a tree in my yard. And I just remember having the tree sort of appear to me in its vividness in a way that was really startling. Um and then I had another experience when I was a kid where I was building, I used to build airplane models and then you know set fire to them and blow them up and everything. But you know, I was building an airplane model and I jumped from my I was really excited. I just finished it and I went from my desk to my kind of jump. towards my bed and I remember in the middle of the about sailing onto the bed this moment of just like where everything just made sense in some sense.
That was just so I was just having I was always having these experiences that pointed to the idea that you know just these rational descriptions don't exhaust, you know, experience.
Uh w you write that experience when you're j talking about that, you write that experience is not an afterthought, but it's a constitutive part of reality. How does that change the fundamental question of this entire podcast, the mind-body problem?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What early experiences sparked Adam Frank’s interest in the “blind spot” of science?
0:08–2:15
2
How does the guest describe the mind‑body problem beyond traditional dualism?
2:15–6:20
3
Why does Adam Frank argue that experience should be the foundation of knowledge?
6:20–11:16
4
What is the difference between realist and anti‑realist views of reality in this discussion?
11:16–16:34
5
How does quantum mechanics reveal the need for a lived‑experience perspective?
16:34–19:14
6
What is the “God’s‑eye view” assumption in science and why is it a blind spot?
19:14–25:37
7
How are new scientific and philosophical approaches moving beyond the blind spot?
25:37–49:51
8
In what ways might AI, climate change, and the search for alien life force us to rethink the blind spot?
49:51–55:31
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Mind-Body Solution with Dr Tevin Naidu
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